ONE on Abbie Barton / owner, The Braided Bakery

WRITTEN BY ALECIA HUMPHREYS PHOTOS BY CHRISTINA KLING-GARRETT

For Abbie Barton, owner of The Braided Bakery on Festus’ Main Street in Missouri, baking has always been a major part of her life. And now it’s her profession: Barton began selling bread from her Crystal City, Missouri, home in May 2022, and in early December opened TBB’s brick-and-mortar location, which serves freshly baked bread, bagels, pretzels and more.

“I never said, ‘I’m going to start selling bread in my home and then, hopefully, within a year we’ll be in a bakery,’” Barton says. “That was never it. But the demand has been there, and I didn’t realize how much I would enjoy it.”

Barton prioritizes using quality ingredients and making everything she can from scratch. “We use the bare minimum of ingredients to keep our products as clean as possible … My heart is happiest when I see people sitting in our lobby enjoying our food and time with family and friends.”