She's the crack dealer of pastries, she's going to have Chardon wrapped around her finger. Devin Bennett
“Stressed spelled backwards is desserts … so eat more cupcakes.”
While pointing to the fitting quote written on the playful blue-painted walls of Chardon’s new bakery, Steve Sawczak said, “See, that gives you a license to eat more cupcakes.”
The Munson Township resident and his wife, Hazel, brought their grandchildren to Sweet Grace Anna’s bakery and cupcake shop at 209 Center Street as a special treat for the day.
“We’ve been telling them all day we’re going to a special place,”?Hazel said, adding she heard about the bakery, which opened Oct. 7, from her sister-in-law.
The children played in a designated “kids corner”?while their grandparents and mother ordered several cupcakes and cookies — one of the grandchildren making it known she’d like the “green cookie.”
Owners Devin Bennett, a Kirtland native, and Ellen Harvischak, a Youngstown-area native, greeted each customer as though they were old friends, driving home their desire to embody a true “mom and pop”?shop.
The couple recently relocated their bakery from Palatka, Fla., where they had been living for the past two years.
“We had had (another) business, a bakery, that we sold two years ago,”?Harvischak said, adding the bakery had two locations — Boardman and Sharon, Pa.
“We started that business, just the two of us, out of our house and it just grew and grew and grew like a monster,”?Bennett said with a laugh.
The couple sold the bakery in 2013 and decided to move to Florida for a “change of scenery.”
“And that’s where we started Sweet Grace Anna’s,”?Harvischak said, adding it was named after their 8-year-old daughter, Grace?Anna.
Despite a loyal customer following, the family grew homesick over those two years — their daughter in particular.
“We were just getting homesick for our family. (Grace Anna) really was the one that wanted to move back most of all. She really wanted to come back. She missed her cousins, she missed her grandparents, she missed snow,”?Harvischak said, joking they definitely picked the right spot for snow.
“Something was calling us back home. We had an opportunity to move to Chardon and I really wanted my daughter to attend Chardon Schools,”?she said. “Plus, we have so much family here and we just felt that Chardon didn’t have a bakery or anything like us and we thought it would be a good opportunity to get established in … a town that was thriving. We felt it was a good family town for us and our kid.”
That feeling of family translates in the couple’s bakery decor, which features fun, light blue walls with pink accents as well as a children’s corner with toys and plastic cupcakes and pastries.
“When we moved here, one of the things that I?immediately had in mind is I?wanted (the shop) to be a family-centered kind of business. That’s why we have the kids corner, because then parents can come in, order something and their kids can play,”?Harvischak said, adding her mother and daughter also help run the shop.
“This is our livelihood, this business supports our family. It’s truly, truly a mom and pop shop in every sense of the word,”?she said.
But baking hasn’t always been the bread-winning career for Harvischak and Bennet.
“I?used to be a teacher. I was a French teacher and before I?was a French teacher, I?was deliberating, well should I?be a teacher or should I?become a chef?” she recalled. “I?didn’t know which one I?wanted to do.?I became a teacher, but I?found myself really drawn to baking.”
When she married Bennett, Harvischak made their wedding cake and the idea for the business bloomed from there.
“She’s the crack dealer of pastries, she’s going to have Chardon wrapped around her finger,”?Bennett joked from behind the counter. “I?give it less than a month. They’re either gonna love us or hate us because they’re going to come in and say, ‘You made me gain 10 to 20 pounds extra that I?didn’t have before.'”
Harvischak laughed. She gave kudos to her husband’s talents as well.
“My husband went to art school at?Denison (University). He is a phenomenal artist and I?thought we could use his talents to do some really cool things with cakes,” she said. “So I?do the baking. I?do the pretty things in the shop, the cutsie things and he does the crazy stuff.”
These include sports-themed cakes such as Ohio State Buckeyes and Cleveland Indians as well as Dr. Seuss themed cakes and traditional wedding cakes. Many more samples can be viewed on the Sweet Grace Anna’s Facebook page.
“We like to make an attractive looking cake, but we want that cake to taste good,” Harvischak said. “It has to taste wonderful. And everything we do is from scratch, which is sometimes a rarity. You would be so surprised who is not from scratch. Everything is fresh. We do all the hard work. It’s old-fashioned ingredients, there’s no mixes or frozen doughs from the store. It’s stuff we do here.”
While cakes are the couple’s main focus, they also offer cupcakes, cookies and other pastries.
“We have that to supplement the cake business and to get people attracted to the cake business because once they try a cupcake, they’ll say, ‘You know, it’s really good, maybe I’ll order my birthday cake or we should get the wedding cake there.’ It’s a way to increase sales, but it’s also a way to advertise for the bigger business.”
So far, the family has been elated by the response they’ve had since opening their doors Oct. 7.
“It’s been great. I?think it’s more than exceeded our expectations and we are thrilled about that,”?Bennett said. “Opening a business is always a gamble, but we had an inkling that this was going to be the right place to be. And judging by the buzz that’s been around town since we mentioned we were thinking about opening here … the response that we’ve gotten from people, it really isn’t a gamble at all, it turned out to be a very good business choice.
“We’re thrilled and we’re thrilled that the people have embraced us so much and we’re looking forward to being here for many years. So we’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing best, keep improving, just growing with the people.”
For more information on Sweet Grace Anna’s, call 440-214-4989.
