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Otter Creek Bakery Celebrates 25 Years In Business

photo by Larry Johnson Ben and Sarah Wood at Otter Creek Bakery.

Tuesday May 3, 2011

By Larry Johnson

     When I asked Sarah and Ben Wood what they attributed to the phenomenal success of their Otter Creek Bakery over the past 25 years, they both agreed that it was quality. “Quality is first. If it’s not good, it’s not going out the door,” Sarah told me.

     Their success, I also know, didn’t materialize without a lot of hard work. They get up and head for work while most of us are still enjoying REM sleep and immersed in our fourteenth dream. By 4:00 a.m. Sarah and Ben, along with their 12 employees and sometimes their two sons Taylor and Griffin, are hard at work at their number 14 College Street location. “It’s amazing how quiet things are at that time of day,” Sarah told me.

     This routine has been going on for decades, and Sarah and Ben agreed that going to work at the bakery, and providing their customers with the multitude of soups, sandwiches, croissants, breads, pastries, salads and a variety of other goodies, too many to mention, is not only a challenge but just plain fun. “It’s true, most people would consider what we do to be very hard work,” Ben told me, “but to us it’s play. We love doing what we do and we go to work to have fun.”

     Once a week during the summer, the Woods fire up their clay oven at their home in Cornwall and bake bread. This, believe it or not, is more or less a hobby, but their customers get the benefit of their homemade creations. The oven is an improvement over an earlier incarnation of an oven that was made from Addison County clay, with the help of neighbors and friends. “The old one worked for a while,” Ben told me, “but it eventually began to crumble.” It would seem, from an outsider’s perspective, that Sarah and Ben have incorporated their lifestyle, as well as their work, into a marvelously holistic synthesis. How many of us look forward to Monday morning with the same enthusiasm that we view the upcoming weekend?

     Otter Creek Bakery’s narrative really started back in 1975 when Ben went to work for Jean Berruet, a French trained chef who owned Chanticleer, a seasonal restaurant on Nantucket Island. Ben started out as a pot washer but ended up as an apprentice, and over the years learned the trade. In 1979, Sarah came to work at Chanticleer and the two eventually became a couple, working together during the season for Berreut and traveling around the country during the off-season, working at other restaurants.

     In 1983, the Woods ended up at a restaurant in Burlington, during one of their off-season stints, and liked the area so well that they spent the next year and a half there. One day they decided to come to Middlebury for lunch and fell in love with the place. It just so happened there was a vacancy available for rent in Frog Hollow. The couple made an offer and the Otter Creek Cafe & Bakery was born.

     Their business opened during commencement week at the college that first year, and Ben and Sarah readily admit that they weren’t prepared for the amount of business that came their way that first summer. It was overwhelming and consumed their every waking minute.  Summer eventually ended, however, and the slow winter season ate into their profits. In those days, it seems, the Frog Hollow location only enjoyed a summer prosperity.

     In 1989, they first leased and then purchased and renovated Emilio’s, a building that had started its career as a gas station and then had evolved into a convenience store and deli. Moving up to the main business section of town, and concentrating solely on the bakery and the deli, was, obviously, the right career decision for Ben and Sarah.

    On their website (www.ottercreekbakery.com) Sarah and Ben describe their business as a “small European-style bakery/deli offering a full line of gourmet foods made on the premises.” Otter Creek Bakery has also won “numerous gourmet food awards, including ‘Best Pastry Shop and Artisan Bread’ from the American institute of Food and Wine, Vermont Chapter.”  In other words, as far as the world of food is concerned, “they’ve arrived,” and Middlebury is all the richer for it. The rest is history. Ben and Sarah came to Middlebury, started a business, a family and built a life and a reputation that is based upon a recipe of play, professionalism and an enduring love of what they do.

    For more information about pricing and catering call 802-388-3371 or email  [email protected].

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