East 542

The Wake and Bakery

Feb 28, 2010

Anyone who's been through Glacier more than once on their way to Mt. Baker has seen the Wake and Bakery attached to the Glacier Ski Shop. Court and Rebecca Andersen have run the place for six years and have lived in the Glacier area for eight. I've known them both for longer than that so I decided to get the inside scoop on The Wake and Bakery.

I dropped by the Wake and Bakery one afternoon after skiing and had a chat with Rebecca. In the background Janis Joplin was jamming about a Mercedes Benz and a steady stream of people came and went, getting their coffee and pastry fix, buying stickers, shirts, and other Glacier stuff. I sadly watched as the last of the blueberry coffee cakes were sold. I had already eaten one but was eyeing one of the remaining two when someone snatched them both up.

The Wake and Bakery has been around for six winters, and Rebecca have lived in Glacier full time for nearly 8 years.

John and Drew Adams who run the Glacier Ski Shop started all of this by approaching Court and Rebecca with the idea of coffee in their ski shop. John and Drew have a friend in California with a ski/coffee shop that was working out, so they wanted to try it in Glacier.

Court and Rebecca were both living in Glacier and commuting to Bellingham at the time, so something local seemed like a great idea. At the same time, Court was also the Baker at Grahams Restaurant so he had the hook up for a kitchen and a reputation for making tasty delights.

So Court and Rebecca were the right people for the job. They signed a contract for one season because pretty much everyone was understandably skeptical of the chance of success for something like this. That first season was one of the worst in Mt. Baker's history yet the Wake and Bakery survived and thrived.

Now 6 years later they are still stocking up the Wake and Bakery with scones and great coffees, but it wasn't always as nice and cozy as it is now. The first two years were spent in a tarp tent on the end of the porch of the Glacier Ski Shop. As things worked out, the tent was replaced by the enclosed space that the Wake and Bakery is in today.

Future Plans: "We are in a time of great transition... a time of growth. We have the following, we just don't have the space!"

Rebecca said that The Wake and Bakery is looking for a way to grow and expand, but there's not much available in Glacier at the moment as far as commercial locations. They don't want to be a full on cafe, but people want to sit down, they want merchandise, they want more baked goods, and the Wake and Bakery needs more space to accomodate their customers.

At this time Court and Rebecca are waiting to see what will happen at the end of the season as far as the Wake and Bakery is concerned, but they are keeping all of their options open and hoping for another opportunity to come along that allows their business to grow in a way that works out for them.

I've known Court and Rebecca for a long time and when Rebecca says, "We'll find a way..." I believe her.