Barbara Bowley, left, and Stacy LaBombard are the owners of Annabella’s Bakery & Cafe in Richmond. “We have always had a very close relationship. We seem to work well together because Barbara loves to bake and is great at it, and Stacy loves to cook and invent different things,” they said in a recent interview. (Donald Jamison / The Times Record)
Some of the popular bakery items at Annabella’s are blueberry and raspberry scones, Aunt Pam’s sticky buns, eclairs and cream puffs, chocolate chip cookies and danishes. (Donald Jamison / The Times Record)
Annabella’s Bakery & Cafe in Richmond. (Donald Jamison / The Times Record)
“We have had a few customers tell us that being here is like being at home or in a family member’s kitchen,” Stacy said. “That always makes us smile because that was exactly what we wanted.”
The Times Record recently conducted a question-and-answer session with Barbara and Stacy to learn more about Annabella’s, such as their menu offerings, how the bakery/cafe got its name, and who is the boss on this mother-daughter team.
Q. Describe Annabella’s for us and the “feel” you are trying to accomplish, with you mentioning specifically the concept of an open kitchen. Talk about “Barbara’s dream” of someday running a bakery or cafe.
A. Annabella’s was started with the intention of having a “small town feel.” We wanted our business to feel like our home.
Both of us enjoy cooking for people and watching people eat, so it only made sense to us to have a nice open kitchen and baking area where we could enjoy watching our customers eat and still be able to work at the same time.
We also started Annabella’s to fulfill Barbara’s dream of owning a small place. For most of her life she wanted to own a place like this but getting married, having two children, getting divorced and then being a single parent, mostly full time, put a halt to that.
She went to college full time to get her business degree. She took advantage of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters agency while earning her degree because she had two small children. She graduated from college and then started as a temp in 1989 at Downeast Energy in Brunswick and ended up working there for 21 years.
With her children now grown, she finally decided to take the leap and open her own business. Her husband came home one day and said, “If you are really serious about wanting to open your own place, there is a spot I want you to see.” So, she went and looked, saw the potential the location had and fell in love.
That was during February (2011). In March, she gave her one-month notice at Downeast Energy and we spent three months getting the building ready. We opened on June 1, 2011.
Q. You offer baked goods and breads, while also serving breakfast and lunch. Describe your menus, and please name five or six items that have that “must try” kind of appeal.
A. Almost everything here at Annabella’s is homemade.
We make all of our breads homemade (except rye) and all of our pastries as well. We use a homemade season salt on our home fries, make homemade tarragon, basil and curry mayo for our sandwiches and hummus for our veggie wrap as well.
We have a full breakfast menu that we serve Tuesday through Friday until 11 a.m. and then all day Saturday and Sunday. We make homemade biscuits with sausage gravy, which has become a favorite with customers.
Also, our stuffed French toast — which is two pieces of our French toast stuffed with a raspberry cream cheese mixture and topped with powdered sugar and fresh raspberries — is a big hit. Our omelettes are popular as well, because you have a choice of cheese, one being Cabot extra sharp cheddar, choice of fresh vegetables, and meats. We also offer veggie sausage for those of you who don’t eat meat.
We do a bigger breakfast for those of you that are really hungry, which is called the Farmers Breakfast. It was named after Royal Farmer, Barbara’s father and Stacy’s grandfather. He died two years ago in March and didn’t get to see his daughter’s dream become a reality. But the breakfast named after him would have been one he wanted to eat if his longtime girlfriend Rita would have let him.
The Farmers Breakfast is three eggs cooked the way you like, home fries, bacon, sausage and choice of toast.
Our lunch menu consists of a variety of sandwiches and a few different salads. We also make homemade soups, but tend to do less of those in the summer because they don’t always sell well in the heat.
A few things that are a “must try” are the tarragon chicken salad sandwich on homemade rosemary bread, a Reuben made with fresh sauerkraut and house-made corned beef, or the BLT made with applewood smoked bacon. We also make a turkey BLT with basil mayo.
We would like to add that we do not have a fryer here, so a burger and fries are not available, although we do offer different burgers occassionally on special.
Some of the popular bakery items are blueberry and raspberry scones, Aunt Pam’s sticky buns, eclairs and cream puffs, chocolate chip cookies, and danishes.
We also make a variety of breads. We make white, wheat, and rosemary bread. Some of the specialty breads are apple, jalapeno cheddar, ham spinach cheddar, and mediterranean.
Q. Do you do catering or take special orders?
A. We have catered a few local parties, such as bridal showers and Christmas parties, and luncheons at a local school or office birthday parties.
We always take special orders and orders for holidays as well. This past year for Thanksgiving we had a large amount of pies and rolls to bake. We have done some birthday cakes, but we do keep them simple. None of us here have been able to go to a cake decorating class yet, so we try not to get too elaborate. Although, Aunt Pam and Stacy do have a fun time doing children’s cakes.
Q. You are a mother-daughter team. Tell us about yourselves, your relationship, and your backgrounds that have led to this new adventure. Who’s the boss?
A. We have always had a very close relationship. We seem to work well together because Barbara loves to bake and is great at it, and Stacy loves to cook and invent different things.
Barbara has a business degree, multiple trainings, and experience in human resources, while Stacy has always worked in restaurants and has always tried to learn the ins and outs of working in a kitchen, having good customer service, and the daily chores that need to be done to keep an establishment “well oiled.”
Barbara also worked in restaurants until she graduated from college in 1989. She worked for Grand City in Brunswick for a long time. And, anyone who knows Grand City, it was a small town restaurant and a lot of our family members worked there over the years. When Stacy was 15 she worked there on a worker’s permit. It was her first job as well as Barbara’s.
Who’s the boss? Well, really both of us, but Stacy is a control freak and tends to be more in charge with things. She has to remember now and then to “let loose.”
Barbara likes to joke that the roles are reversed now. But, in all seriousness, we work well together. We try to sit and make decisions together. We seem to have two different outlooks on things which actually works because we can open each other’s eyes and it allows us to view situations in a new light. So, overall, it works well.
Q. How did you come up with the name Annabella’s? Why did you decide to locate in Richmond?
A. Barbara’s middle name is Ann. Her husband has always had a nickname for her which is Babsy Annabelle.
When we first decided to open we thought that Dragonfly Cafe would be our name. We both love dragonflies and a couple of years ago we got matching dragonfly tattoos.
After some thinking, Barbara asked, “What about Annabella’s Bakery and Cafe?” We both loved it! So, we named it that and had our tattoo artist draw us a logo that is, of course, a dragonfly.
We wanted to be in Richmond because Barbara lives in Bowdoinham and Stacy lives in Brunswick. Although it is a bit of a drive for Stacy, the location is fantastic. Richmond is such a great community. Our restaurant is located across the street from the town park and landing, which is on the edge of the Kennebec River.
We have a few outdoor tables during the summer months and we have been known to walk your breakfast or lunch over to the park if you are sitting at one of the picnic tables there. We only ask that you return the plates and silverware.
Q. Do you make it a point to use local and Maine-made products and ingredients whenever possible? Who are some of your suppliers?
A. We do like to use local ingredients if possible.
We use local potatoes from Drummond Farm. Those we get yearround. We use a local spice company for some of our spices, which is Gryffon Ridge in Dresden. We get our lettuce and some other vegetables from Stonecipher Farm in Bowdoinham during the summer months.
We also have a guy that works with us part time who is also our printing guy, Dale Woerter, who owns Will-Dale Press in Bowdoin. Other than printing, he has a passion for growing vegetables and herbs. So, we get vegetables from him in the summer and some apples in the fall. This year he will be growing basil and tarragon for us to use in our mayos.
We sell local eggs from Kimball Egg Farm in Bowdoinham. We haven’t started using them in the kitchen, but people have bought a dozen and then had us cook them for their breakfast.
We serve Wicked Joe’s coffee that is based out of Brunswick and we retail it for those who want to make it at home. When we do burgers on special, we have used hamburger from Eastern River Cattle Co. in Dresden.
Q. What about recipes … do you use old family ones or those from current cookbooks?
A. We use both. We have an abundance of cookbooks here. Some new, some old, some so old that you can barely turn the page because you think it will crumble.
There are a ton of old recipe cards from Barbara, Aunt Pam, Barbara’s late mother Mary, and other family members. Cooking magazines from every aisle in every store that have been collected. We go online a lot to find recipes and always look at inserts that come in newspapers, too.
Some staple recipes we use that we will never change are:
— From Mary: Whoopie pie filling, white bread, peanut butter cookies and date bars.
— From Aunt Pam: Season salt, the whoopie pie shells, pizza dough, pecan pie and sticky buns.
— From Barbara: Apple pie, chocolate chip cookies, coffee cake, a few kinds of muffins and chocolate cake with Mary’s whoopie frosting.
— From Stacy: Clam chowder, pico de gallo, hummus, various soups, and the tarragon and curry chicken salads.
— From Tina: Eclairs and cream puffs, various breads, scones and biscuits.
Surprisingly, those are just a few of the things we do here. Oh, and of course, Aunt Debbie’s pancake mix. You can’t beat her recipe.
Q. How many eggs do you go through in a week and pounds of flour or sugar? Any other big numbers?
A. On average, we go through 45 to 60 dozen eggs a week. That includes breakfast and baking.
Flour varies depending on how many special orders we have and if it is near a holiday. We use 150 to 200 pounds of flour a week on average. Sugar is approximately 25 pounds a week.
Also, we use almost 20 pounds of Cabot extra sharp cheddar a week, if we have a lot of pre-ordered breads. It’s one of the most popular cheeses at breakfast time for breakfast sandwiches and omelettes.
Q. You have been open since last June. Any surprises or things you would do differently if you were just starting out? What has been the response from customers? You said someone stated, “I feel like I’m eating at home.”
A. Anything we would do differently? You know, we don’t think so.
We had a very soft opening, although everyone in town knew we were opening for about three months. We have learned a lot as time has passed, but I don’t think we would have wanted to know it all in the beginning. There is something to be said about learning as you go and doing things hands on. You never really know anyway what you need, how much to make of something, what people will really want or not want. Everything changes daily it seems.
We know that Thursdays are a sticky bun day, for whatever reason, and that we need extra breads and pastries on the weekends. You couldn’t have told us that in the beginning.
Our customers mean so much more to us than we ever thought they could. We felt so welcomed by the town and the people that live here and they have made us a part of their community and they treat us like family as much as we try to do the same for them.
People come in, grab a cup of coffee, sit down and start chatting with whoever they are meeting here. They bring in their own mugs so they can use them every time they are here. We are trying to figure out what wall we want to use to hang their mugs up.
We have had a few customers tell us that being here is like being at home or in a family member’s kitchen. That always makes us smile because that was exactly what we wanted.
We are on a first name basis with a lot of people and they call in their orders and we know what they like, what they don’t like, and what time they will be here. We have two ladies that come every Thursday for sticky buns. Eat some here, take some home. I keep broccoli here for one lady who loves a broccoli cheddar omelette.
Things like this we love, we thrive off of. It means the world to us both that we can make people happy, make them smile, and in turn they do the same for us. So, thank you, Richmond. And, of course, other towns as well.
Q. Are any other stores carrying your breads, baked goods, etc.? If so, who?
A. Yes. Right now we sell our breads, hummus, quiche and pot pies to the Long Branch School of Maine and General Store in Bowdoinham.
We would like to eventually branch out more. We do some farmers markets in the summer as well.
Q. Are there other staff members you would like to mention?
A. Working next to us at Annabella’s is Aunt Pam, Tina, Dale, Howie, Jen, Rob, Bud and Red-headed Pam.
Aunt Pam sort of “does it all.” She is one of Babara’s sisters. She bakes, cooks, preps, does dishes, runs errands, runs the register. You name it, she does it. The whole operation wouldn’t work without her. A little hint: If the entire place is dusted with flour, Aunt Pam is working. She gets crazy with the mixers!
Tina is a baker for us. She is the one responsible for some of the breads, the amazing scones we have, our all homemade eclairs and cream puffs, danishes, cannoli, and some other things here at Annabella’s. She was born in Italy and has always been a great cook and baker. She owned her own restaurant called Tina’s in Chelsea for 25 years. She brought her talent and knowledge to Annabella’s and has been a huge part of our success.
Dale is a cook and baker here as well. He is the owner of Will-Dale Press in Bowdoin. He has always had a dream of owning his own breakfast place and he is an amazing baker as well. His son is married to Barbara’s niece (Stacy’s cousin) and he also does all of the printing and window signage for us. He was part of our family and has also been a great addition and a huge help at the cafe.
Howie is our dishwasher/cook/prep cook. He lives in town and became part of the crew seven months ago. He does just about everything here. He is willing to do anything and always does a fantastic job. We don’t have an automatic dishwasher here because we are too small, so Howie handwashes every dish. Every dish! He should actually get the most recognition because he works very hard for us and we could not do it without him.
Jen is a third cousin to Stacy. She works every other Sunday here as a server when Stacy has to cook. She hasn’t been here long, but we always love it when we have her. She brings a lot of laughs with her and is always smiling.
Rob (a.k.a., Caldwell) is Stacy’s boyfriend. He is a cook here and is known for his creativity and amazing egg cooking skills. He always has culinary breakthroughs with his “food concoctions” and a lot of our breakfast specials come from him. He loves breakfast and cooks it very well. He also loves sandwiches and puts out very delicious ones at that.
Bud is our guy that “will work for food.” He is Barbara’s husband and Stacy’s stepfather. He is usually here doing our PR work, bouncing around from table to table, talking with customers, most of whom he knows. He also helps us bus tables, make coffee, roll silverware or whatever else needs to be done. He also is responsible for a lot of the renovation work that happened here at Annabella’s.
Last but not least, Red-headed Pam. Her and Stacy have been friends for just about 12 years. She is our Tuesday and Wednesday server and also our fill-in on Sundays when we need her. We call her Red-headed Pam because we have two Pams. We needed to separate the two and Redheaded Pam made sense because, well, she has red hair. Also, one thing to look at when you come in are her shoes. She always has on fantastic shoes.
Q. Do you have any future plans or new features for the business?
A. Yes. We would really love to have another spot in town so that we could have Annabella’s Cafe in one spot and Annabella’s Bakery in another.
We also are hoping to sell our products in other places. And, eventually, have other locations in different towns. Bring some good homemade food to other areas in Maine.
We have had customers from New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts ask us to open locations near them. We shall see.
Q. Considering all the issues with starting a small business (licenses, fees, permits, etc.), is it an easy or hard task to accomplish in Maine?
A. We found it to be easy. There are so many ways to get help with everything that you need to do that it makes it easier.
The Small Business Association is a great resource to use. They can help with business plans, loans, what permits you need and who to contact, etc. Also, you need different town permits and Richmond was fantastic to us and very easy to work with. The Department of Health was great and our inspector, Scott, couldn’t be better.
So, we found it very easy to set up everything and to get everything we needed and when we needed it.
Q. What is your contact information, such as mailing address, telephone number, email address and website? When is your bakery/ cafe open?
A. Annabella’s Bakery and Cafe
- 2 Front St., Richmond ME 04357
- Telephone: 207-737-7165
- Email: Annabellasbakery.cafe@yahoo.com or info@annabellas.me
- Website: www.annabellas.me
Our hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Sunday, 6:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. We do breakfast all day Saturday and Sunday.
Q. Is there anything else you would like to add?
A. If there is something you don’t see on our menu that you would like, please ask. We will do anything that anyone wants if we can. We love trying new recipes and seeing people happy. So, don’t be shy, our kitchen is your kitchen.
pgabrion@timesrecord.com
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