Family bakery ready to return

A PROMINENT fixture of the Midvale Shopping Centre is about to re-open after being shut for more than a year following a devastating fire.

Stewart’s Bakery owners Noel and Margaret Stewart are preparing to bring the bread once more with their relaunch set for early next month.

Redevelopment started in September, and Margaret said she’s feeling “mixed emotions” at reopening.

“Everyone’s been asking ‘are you excited about it?’ and yes we are but all we really want is our old shop back and our old lives back,” she said.

“It’s been very hard work rebuilding. This has affected a lot of people too, we supply a lot of football clubs, schools, the Mount Clear area.

“We’ve got to try and put our past behind us and look to the future.”

Between the updated ovens and cool room, new staff uniforms and a modern flooring design, Noel said the reopening is like “opening for the first time again.”

“We’ve had to start from scratch,” he said. “The difference this time is we’re starting with our customers already with us.

“We’ve spruced it all up with new floors, new cash registers. The tiles we originally put down were over 30 years old.”

The bakery has been closed since January last year following an arson attack which also damaged five other Midvale businesses.

The Stewarts’ roughly-15 employees have been retained with regular payments thanks to interruption insurance which extended to their casual workers.

With the bakery more than 30 years old, Noel said their year off has given him time to appreciate the legacy his family has built.

“I didn’t realise how known we were until this,” he said. “You might go to the other side of town and people would know all about the bakery.

“We’ve been here that long we had children come in who now have their own children coming in too.”