One of the village of Alfred’s best kept secrets is out.
With the opening of a retail outlet for the Christmas season at its commercial operation in Alfred, Bakery of Heidi and Willy has been discovered by local residents eager to try out the its products. The bakery, located at 4979 County Road 17, just west of the village, is best known for its Aunt Lizzie’s All Maple Cookies, which are sold at supermarkets and retail outlets throughout Ontario and Quebec.
For the past several years, owners Heidi and Willy Suter have also been selling holiday baked goods at Christmas market fairs in the Ottawa area. However with most of those events canceled in 2020, the couple decided to open a small retail outlet at the company’s Alfred bakery for their festive offerings. The outlet first opened to the public on October 30.
“We decided that so people could still buy our (holiday baked goods) that we would open a little store for the season,” says co-owner Willy Suter, who immediately discovered there was a market in Alfred for more than just Christmas products.
“The idea was to sell our Christmas items, but the first nine customers who walked in asked if we could make bread. So now we offer what literally a full bakery has – from breads, to cakes, to all of our regular Christmas items.”
Everything produced at Bakery of Heidi and Willy is made from scratch and the owners take great pride in their products. The quality of the baking has been immensely appreciated by local customers.
“We’ve had to make some adjustments for efficiency to make sure we can keep up to the level people expect, because we have been super busy,” Willy says. “It’s been a big challenge, but it’s been good – it’s been great fun.”
The bakery is open on Tuesdays, Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays each week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Customers can call in orders in advance by calling 613-858-2880. They can also be contacted through their Facebook page.
Bakery of Heidi and Willy will be open to customers right up until Christmas and perhaps a few days afterwards until the New Year. The owners say things have gone so well thus far that the retail outlet may open for special events and times of the season going forward.
“We’ve talked about maybe doing something for the Spring season,” says Suter, who added that as bakers it has been a nice change for the couple to move from their wholesale operation to a format that allows them to interact directly with customers.
“Heidi really enjoys the store – she likes the interaction with people. That’s why we are now talking about possibly opening for six to eight weeks again in the spring.”
All of the products available at Bakery of Heidi and Willy are made from scratch.
