In the beginning:

When the bakery opened in June 1995, we wanted to create a simple place.  A place for all people to come and feel welcome, a place to share stories, share music, share dreams, a place to rest and smell bread and cookies, a place to laugh, cry and hope, a place to bring a new born baby, a place to bring aging parents and know they will be treated with kindness.  What better way to share this Amazing but simple place.

Marcie and Chip

We decided early on to try and use simple ingredients that we could pronounce and, preferably, ingredients with names involving no more than three syllables.  From the beginning our goal has been to make stuff from scratch with real ingredients.  We use butter and sugar and flour and eggs rather than the scoop and bake stuff filled with multi-syllabic ingredients.

The simple step of making real food with real ingredients and real cooks and bakers is noticeable and creates a connection that is filled with pleasure.  We probably shouldn’t tell you this but when we opened this bakery our experience as bakers consisted of two recipies: “Doorstop Bread” and “Hockey Puck Biscuits”.  Both names were descriptive of the decidedly un-delicate nature of those particular bakery products.  Not to be deterred, using our meager savings and a credit card, we opened this bakery.  It is a testimony to the fact that all decisions should not be made solely on the basis of good sense and planning.  Ours was a hazy dream that leaped suddenly into reality with the ringing alarm clock at 4am.

Today, Amazing Grace is still a simple place.  Chip is gone, and we continue to live by the same principles this place was founded on and continue to try and improve on everything we do.