By SCOTT D. JOHNSTON

With the new year comes a whole lot of new for Linda Swalley and her local bakery and crafters co-op: a new full-time job in a completely new location with a lot of new products and services and a partly new name, the Ocean Shores Bakery Café and Octopus Crafts.

Swalley, who has lived at the beach with her husband, Ralph, for nine years now, plans to be up and running this Sunday, Feb. 4 in the new location at 749 Pt. Brown Ave. NW. She said the new place enables a huge expansion of the types of cooking they can do, making it possible to offer many more menu items and deliver faster service, as well as do private parties and catering. There will be more seating indoors and out and longer hours.

The bakery’s new home has housed several eateries over the years, most recently the Gustoso Italian restaurant, which closed last fall. The place also was operated for several years as Café Amici. January 28 was the bakery’s last day at Driftwood Plaza, the mini-mall at Ocean Shores Blvd. and Chance A la Mer.

With a lifetime of baking and pastry experience and many years of involvement with farmers markets, Swalley launched the Ocean Shores Farmers Market in 2013, supporting it with her baked goods. Three summers of fighting the weather led her and others to seek an indoor location.

The Driftwood Plaza space became available when the Subway restaurant moved across Chance A la Mer to its present location. In 2016, Swalley started a co-op which leased the location, then leased space to her for a bakery, and space to local crafters.

She said the Ocean Shores Bakery and Eatery/Co-op made it possible to launch the bakery and create for small, local artisans and crafters an opportunity to try the retail market with minimal investment and risk. That method was successful, to the point that some crafters needed more room and eventually created another business, Crabby Crafters, that uses other space in Driftwood Plaza, while a dozen or so remain in the bakery storefront.

Since then, she’s been fine tuning the bakery operation, adding breakfast and lunch, and finding two key employees, Jessica Delgado and Tiffany Igo. Swalley also had a full-time job. To devote full-time and more to the bakery, she retired last week after 14 years at the Edward Jones Ocean Shores office, where she was Senior Branch Office Administrator.

Swalley said that by far the most exciting thing about the move is the increased capabilities in the new kitchen. She explained that, while she could do commercial baking just fine in the old Subway location, “there’s a minimal kitchen here,” which lacks the ventilation and fire suppression systems required to have a commercial stove top, a cooktop grill and a fryer.

Although she did spend several thousand dollars upgrading the ventilation, putting those systems into the old building was cost prohibitive. So, when she added breakfast and lunch menus, which have become a substantial part of the business, she was limited to using two counter-top panini grills and a microwave oven. “We couldn’t even fry an egg,” she said.

“We perform miracles on those two little grills,” Delgado said with a grin, adding that she’s really looking forward to being able to “actually cook on the stove” in the new location.

Swalley said the new kitchen means she can expand the breakfast and lunch offerings and expects fewer backlogs at peak times. She also plans to add some fried bakery items such as fritters and donuts. She wants to try a salad bar and a potato bar as well.

Hours will be expanded to 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., 7 days a week, and she intends to try adding an evening “family meal” with three entrée choices, one or two nights each week. She will also add some staff. “We’re looking for some key people,” Swalley said. “They don’t have to have bakery experience, but they need a good work history.”

Along with private parties and catering, the bakery also will be working with Weddings By the Sea, she said. Swalley also wants to continue offering local artisans a chance to try their goods at retail. To that end, a group has created a “crafters guild,” Octopus Crafters, which will have 10-15 participants when the store opens.

With a lot of work ahead and a lot of potential, Swalley said, “We’re really excited about the opportunity to be able to offer more service to local people.” The business can be reached by phone at 360-500-2876, and more information can be found at the Facebook page, Ocean Shores Bakery Café.

New headquarters

for Beacon Pest Control

Ed and Shirley Mitchell, the owners of Beacon Pest Control, want to reassure folks that the smoke and flames coming from their business just outside the Ocean Shores gates on Saturday, Feb. 3, do not represent a revenge of the roaches or some sort of fire ant assault.

It’s all part of their plan to build a new 7,500 square foot office and shop structure on that site and provide some North Coast volunteer firefighters an opportunity for some state required live fire training. They have worked it out with Grays Harbor Fire District 7 to do a controlled burn exercise on the existing structure this Saturday morning.

According to Charles Nation, the fire district’s interim chief, excessive wind could postpone the exercise, as could any real fire or medical emergency calls that might occur Saturday morning. Otherwise, he expects up to 15 GHFD7 volunteers to spend most of the day as they burn the structure to the ground.

Following the burn, Beacon will complete the demolition and begin work on their new building. Some site prep has already been underway. They hope to be in their new building in July. In the meantime, the local business that has been family owned since 1989 has moved into a temporary location a few blocks away at 818 Pt. Brown Ave. NW.