Breaking Ground at Ginger and Baker
By Chef Deb Traylor
It’s hard to believe we’ve officially broken ground on this incredible project. While Ginger has had the idea of a pie shop for several years, she and I began to talk about making it a reality just two years ago.
Initially, we’d planned on a little pie shop where locals and visitors to Fort Collins could stop by for a slice of pie or take a whole pie home. We wanted to offer both sweet and savory pies, made from classic and vintage recipes, plus a few modern recipes thrown into the mix. The idea was for it to be simple and fun. You may not believe this, but we didn’t even think we’d serve coffee. It was just going to be pie! Simple. Easy. Pie!
Fast forward to a year ago when Ginger decided to purchase the old Feeders Supply building to house the pie shop. Honestly, it takes vision and a whole lot of chutzpah to see potential in a crazy old building like this.
Historical buildings have their charm, but they don’t meet any of the modern day requirements such as ADA accessibility, plumbing, electrical or ventilation. This old building also has soft, handmade bricks that need to be duplicated for repairs, and a few “cowboy” engineered walls that have to be corrected, yet preserved. The only way to rescue the building, and to make it work as a sweet little pie shop, was to add many of the current requirements within a new building!
Our vision calls for something modern and unique that still complements the old Feeders Supply. If this sounds like the old story of ‘when you decide to paint your walls, then you need new carpet, then you realize you need a new couch,’ you can easily see how we arrived at Ginger and Baker. Our pie shop in the Feeders Supply will now be a community gathering place including retail space, a café and full restaurant, a teaching kitchen and more!
But the heart of the project will always be the original Feeders Supply. To be honest, I love this old building. I love the stories of the people we meet who say this little place was a part of their childhood. I love the 105-year-old wood, the original wavy windows and the character-filled brick used to build her. I love that during the yearlong architectural meetings we use words like “she wants to be” or “she’s asking to be.” This building has life. She has history. She’s taken our little project and she’s challenged us to do more.
Here is the crazy part…we’ve never done this before! Our hope is that if you are interested in old buildings or restorations… or a good pie recipe, you’ll follow along with our progress. Inevitably there will be hiccups, but we want to share every part of this endeavor. It’s personal to us and to so many who grew up with this building. The hope is you will get to know Ginger and Baker and the building that inspired us to be even more then we imagined.
