By Bruce Karnick [email protected]

Wuollet Bakery is a name that should be familiar to Twin Cities residents with their six locations around the area. Currently, there are Wuollet Bakeries in Wayzata, Robbinsdale, Minneapolis, Edina, St. Paul, and Uptown with a seventh on the way.

Emily’s Bakery has officially become part of the Wuollet family of bakeries, according to Norine Bishop. “We started negotiating with them before we closed. The biggest holdup was, they had a bunch of stuff to get taken care of with the lease and the building because we don't own the building. Those negotiations kind of hung things up a little bit. It just took longer than everybody anticipated.” The owner of Wuollet Bakeries now owns seven different bakeries around the metro area. The sale of Emily’s created quite the buzz around town with people being excited for the return of their favorite items. This is where Bishop stepped in to give a word of caution.

“It's going to be a bakery and it's going to be their bakery,” explained Bishop. “It's not going to be Emily's. That's what people need to understand is that it's their stuff, not our stuff. They have all of our recipes, that's part of what they got in the sale, all of our recipes. What they choose to do with those recipes is entirely up to them.”

Bishop also wanted people to realize, even with the recipes exchanging hands, different people make things differently. Two people can make the same exact box cake and the two cakes can taste completely different. In fact, the Emily’s recipe for Almond Tarts is being used at other area bakeries. One customer who had one from a bakery in Woodbury stated they are not the same as Emily’s, but it is the same recipe. Just remember, if Wuolett’s opened with every item that was sold at Emily’s, odds are, things will taste different, but that is not a bad thing.

Bishop also discussed the when, “I don't think he has any idea when it’s going open yet. I know that they were looking at doing a few changes in the building itself, so a lot depends on what's going to get done, how long that's going to take and who's going to do it.”

How is Bishop enjoying bakery retirement? “I do need to find another job,” she laughed. “It has felt great. I mean, the first couple months I had a lot of work I had to do to get things wound down and stuff but, this last month, for sure has been just great,” Bishop added.

She does miss the people and enjoys people saying hi when she is out shopping. The hard part has been the questions that she could not answer, she simply had to keep repeating ‘we are working on a sale’ which gets to feel like a broken record. Now that the sale has taken place, she will really not have any answers.

What is next for the bakery? At this point, a timeline is completely unknown and for many that answer will not do. The Journal has reached out to Wuollet Bakery to welcome them to the community and try to get as many questions answered for our readers, but patience will be needed at this time. This reporter is just as excited to get some donuts as you all are, I promise!