How Terry’s Bake Shop Survived For 35 Years
RIVERVIEW – When Terry and Francine Cohoon turned their general store into a bakery, the adaptation saved their business, which is now celebrating its 35-year anniversary.
Terry Cohoon, who took over the business from a previous owner with his wife in January of 1988, told Huddle that if they didn’t pivot hard from general store to bakery, they’d have lost their business to a new kid in town.
“We came to it as a variety store and it did a little bit of baking in 1988. Not too long after, just up the road from us, the big, new variety store opened up with gas pumps and our variety store business fell apart,” Cohoon said.
“So, we just converted on the fly to baking. My wife went to tech school and learned it on the fly.”
The Cohoons sold off their variety store inventory and converted what they had to a full-time bakery at 605 Hillsborough Road, near Point Park.
“It wasn’t much of a decision, we just had to do something. We always had a little bit [of baking] going on in the back,” said Cohoon.
That conversion was also a catalyst for business growth.
Cohoon said it took a while, but Terry’s Bake Shop being a constant presence in the neighbourhood for three decades allowed them to build a solid base of faithful customers.
“I can honestly say it was good planning, luck, and ability to adapt,” Cohoon said. “We’re still here, I say, with a lot of support. Both our parents helped us when we needed it.”
When Cohoon and his wife took over the business – originally a Quick Mart – they rebranded it with the name it still bears today.
Cohoon described the bakery as old-school, focused on the basics like its popular staple: plain white bread. Cohoon bakes about 150 loaves of it a day.
“We don’t do pastries or fluffy stuff,” he noted.
While there isn’t fluffy stuff, Cohoon said his wife went on to start baking cake donuts, brown bread, and cinnamon buns as the years went on.
“Each one’s got its own little market,” Cohoon said. He noted that he does the bread and yeast products and his wife does squares, pies, and cookies.
The husband-wife duo put in about 60 or more hours a week each to keep Terry’s running.
“That includes our paperwork, maintenance of the building, and a wholesale business we look after, too,” he said.
Cohoon said the pandemic did little to slow their momentum – something he attributes to their reliable roster of customers.
“We were a little concerned, because we were standalone – and not part of a strip mall or something – so, I was worried about people not coming just for that,” Cohoon said.
“It was 99 percent local love for a small neigbourhood business, just people feeling for us and just a ton of new faces.
The Cohoons were able to keep the bakery open, abiding occupancy limits and the other raft of rules put in place for businesses by the health department.
Looking forward, Cohoon said that there are no new plans, saying, “It’s taken us that long to be able to make a pretty good living at it, and we stayed the course to pay for the first 25 to 30 years, you know what I mean?”
Sam Macdonald is a Huddle reporter in Moncton. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].