Gourmet baker tastes success at Sylvania site
If not for a worn-out fuel pump on a Chevrolet Corsica, Country Bread & Grains Co. might be selling bread and cookies to customers in North Carolina instead of suburban Toledo.
The Sylvania business owned by Kelly and Albert Hewitt has been baking gourmet-style breads and sweets made with only natural ingredients since 1996.
The store at 6808 Sylvania Ave. attracts customers from throughout the Toledo area. It serves as the headquarters for bakery operations that supply bread to area supermarkets and HoneyBaked Ham, which sells the firm’s bread loaf packs via the mail and Internet.
However, the western Toledo suburb wasn’t the Hewitts’ first choice. The two were on their way from Saginaw, Mich., to North Carolina with intentions of launching the specialty bakery business in the Raleigh-Durham area when their car broke down in South Toledo.
Mrs. Hewitt said they explored the area while their car was being repaired and eventually found a spot on Central Avenue near King Road in Sylvania Township.
The store and bakery was launched with seed money from the owner of a similar type of business that featured home-made baked goods in Saginaw, where the couple worked. Mr. Hewitt was chief baker at the Michigan operation.
