MIDCOAST—Two micro-bakeries have quietly opened their doors this summer. Take a look at what they’re offering:

Sunflour meals and cookies

43 Hatchet Mountain Road, Hope

For the last three years without a website or advertising, Hope resident Carrie Laurita has been quietly cooking and baking in a tiny air-conditioned shed behind her house at 43 Hatchet Mountain Road, trying to feel out a direction on where her avocation would go.  She is part of a growing number of solo entrepreneurs in food services who test out their passion for hyperlocal communities before making a bigger leap forward. And in the many rural towns of Midcoast, a number of food producers sell out of their own houses. 

Her specialty is gourmet cakes, cookies, and prepared meals — and in the wintertime — batches of comfort soups. Customers order ahead of time by emailing her and she prepares their take-out dishes ready for pick up at certain times.

“My services at the time were already take-out oriented, so three years ago, when the pandemic hit and nobody could go to restaurants, my little business started to take off,” she said. “It was unbelievably busy and so much fun.”

Laurita has decided to offer a new spin on her Sunflour cooking this summer called “Carrie-out” in two forms: 

1. Cool, summery picnic meals and soups people can pick up on Wednesdays, such as curried chicken salad, fruit and cheese kebobs, and a cookie. 

2. Home-baked gourmet cookies out of a special yellow-painted “cookie hut”  that can be sold in a self-serve, self-pay stand similar to the farmer’s stand models.

“I’m just going to put them out every day on the honor system and when they’re gone, they’re gone,” she said.

With a bit of help from two people who assist her with catering services, she is content to keep her operations small.

“People keep saying I need a website, so I’m pretty much at max right now,” she said.

Her cozy work area is a tiny shed decorated with painted sunflowers.

“The baking shed at one time was a hay shed for elephants,” she said. For reference, the large building that abuts her workspace used to be the site of Hope Elephants before the untimely death of her husband, Jim Laurita, the executive director of Hope Elephants.

“When my husband died, I stacked wood, cooked, and baked,” she said. “That’s all I did and how I dealt with grief.”

She said the act of losing herself in cooking was therapeutic and at first, was its only means to an end.

“And then it occurred to me, people might want to buy food from me,” she said.

Soon, her desserts were in demand and she began selling them to local restaurants and general stores. She then did Soup Nights once a weekend and prepared catered dinners. What began as a hobby has turned into her primary source of income.

Laurita is not done dreaming up future plans. The giant barn building that once housed the Hope Elephants, and most recently was Hope Air, is currently a space for North Atlantic Gymnastics Academy, but soon will be empty when they move to another facility.

It occurred to her that given her own interests, the barn could be a multi-use space for her own business, as well as other food purveyors and artists. Perhaps, it might even be an indoor farmer’s market — she hasn’t decided yet.

Laurita’s weekly specials can be found on Instagram @sunflour43 and she can be reached at: sunflouryellow@gmail.com

The Place

117 Elm Street, Camden

Chelsea Kravitz and Chris Dawson, both in their 30s, were living and working together in Kravitz’s bakery-restaurant in Long Island, when the two friends, who became romantically involved, decided they wanted a simpler life, and moved to Camden, Maine this past spring.

Their joint micro-bakery, The Place, launched a quiet grand opening this past weekend in a converted woodworking studio next to their house which is adjacent to the Cedar Crest Inn.

The opening weekend on July 15 and 16 was a surprising success. Despite a gloomy, rainy weekend, Kravitz said word-of-mouth advertising prompted a long line of customers to stand outside their door even before they opened.

Kravitz and Dawson use local flour, dairy, and produce and their biggest seller this past weekend were the savory danishes and a version of “Persian Bun,” a deep-fried cinnamon bun with chocolate frosting made locally famous from the Camden Home Bakery, which has since closed.  “Ours is made with croissant dough, and it has that cinnamon swirl in the middle with the chocolate frosting,” said Kravitz. “It was received really well which made us happy because it’s hard to recreate an old favorite in a town you’re new to.”

They also offer pre-orders on their website.

“We’ll also have plenty available for walk-ins when we’re open,” said Kravitz.

Next weekend they will be open July 22 and 23 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The following week, starting Thursday, July 27, they’ll be open four days a week (Thurs-Fri-Sat-Sun) from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

See The Place’s weekly pre-order menu here. They can also be found on Instagram.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com