With its success in Avon, the owners of Sweet Arts Bakery plan on opening a second bakery on Main Street in Geneseo. The store is scheduled to open at the beginning of 2015 and will be located between Mama Mia’s Restaurant and Georgia’s Clothes Horse II. The husband and wife team Brian and Ruth Ann Lewis will be celebrating their third year of operation with an open house on Friday Nov. 14 and Saturday Nov. 15 at the Avon location at 57 Genesee Street.
The Avon bakery opened on Nov. 16, 2011. Since then, the Lewis' said that their store has become somewhat of a novelty in the community.
“We get a lot of comments that [the store] adds to the quality of life,” Ruth Ann Lewis said in a phone interview.
Brian explained that Sweet Arts makes contributions to many local events and fundraisers, providing custom cakes and catering.
“When people say we have added to the town we live in, there’s no bigger compliment,” he said. “If that is something that can happen in Geneseo too, we’d be overjoyed.”
The bakery held a table at the Geneseo Farmers Market on Center Street this season. Combined with the opening of the Main Street storefront, the positive response from Geneseo residents and students gave the Lewis' an opportunity to expand their business.
“Our core value here is to connect with the community,” Ruth Ann Lewis said. “We really felt like the philosophy we have for the bakery is definitely something that Geneseo would [comply with].”
Community involvement is definitely apparent in the business. Parents of Geneseo students have asked the bakery to deliver cakes to their kids on their birthdays. The new store manager, whose name was not disclosed, is a current graduate student at Geneseo.
“He really knows the community quite well,” Ruth Ann Lewis said. “He helped us to get a feel for what is important to the students because, although we are drawing from the community, the students are going to be a huge part.”
The Lewis' said that they are seeking to hire Geneseo students and hope to see many students passing through to get coffee or breakfast in the morning before class.
Both Ruth Ann and Brian Lewis have been brainstorming ideas for the grand opening of the store. In addition to all of the same features of the store in Avon including coffee, lattes, fresh baked goods specialty order cakes and private parties, the couple plans to equip the store in Geneseo with a cinnamon roll bar.
“One thing that’s really popular is our cinnamon rolls, so we came up with this idea to have a cinnamon roll bar [with] different types of cinnamon rolls, toppings and icings,” Ruth Ann Lewis said.
Another possible future endeavor for the bakery’s Geneseo location could be baking and cake decorating classes. Ruth Ann Lewis explained that she offers cake-decorating classes at her Avon location and, with students expressing interest in baking classes, she hopes to eventually do the same in Geneseo.
Sweet Arts will periodically make announcements regarding the official opening date on its Facebook page. The couple expressed immense excitement for the new location.
“We’re really excited about [this] opportunity,” Brian Lewis said.
Corrrection: In the Nov. 13 issue of The Lamron, the article titled “Avon bakery to open Main Street shop after success at Farmers Market” said that the owners’ last names were Kelly. Their correct last name is Lewis.