Owner Of Mechanicville Bakery To Open A Second Shop In Ellsworth Commons, Malta Mocha Lisa’s Caffe Is Open At New Clifton Park Mall Space With New Ownership

BY CHRISTINE GRAF

Just over a year after establishing The Sugar Fairy Bakes in Mechanicville, owner Stacie Blair plans to open a second location in Ellsworth Commons in Malta.

The 2110 Ellsworth Boulevard space where the shop will be located was previously occupied by the Little Gym.

Blair developed her love of baking at an early age while working alongside her grandmother in the kitchen. By the age of 5, she had memorized her grandmother’s banana bread recipe. Today, she serves that same banana bread at The Sugar Fairy Bakes.

A longtime Mechanicville resident, Blair was working in restaurant management and sales when she experienced sudden and unexplained hearing loss in 2014. Over a three-month period, she completely lost her hearing.

After receiving cochlear implants, she was able to regain some hearing but remains hearing impaired and suffers from problems with her equilibrium. Because of this, Blair was no longer able to work in a profession that required phone calls and interaction with customers.

It was while she was in search of a new career that her son suggested she sell her baked goods. Although she was skeptical that anyone would want to buy them, he convinced her to give it a try.

Blair began selling her products at farmers markets in 2019. Less than a year later, the COVID pandemic shut down farmers markets indefinitely. But by that time, she had developed a significant following.

During the shutdown, Blair developed a website with online ordering. She featured a daily special and offered local delivery within 30 miles, as well as contactless pickup.

“That’s when my business exploded,” she said. “I was working non-stop and became very overwhelmed. I had to hire a bookkeeper because I could no longer keep up with everything on my own.”

Her business became so successful that Blair decided to open a brick-and-mortar shop. Those plans were dashed after she discovered that local banks were unwilling to give her a loan because she had been in business for less than three years.

Several months later, she learned that the owner of Golden Krust Bagels in Mechanicville was interested in retiring. After leasing the 205 Park Ave. shop with all of his equipment, Blair opened The Sugar Fairy Bakes in December 2021.

Nine months later, she found someone who was willing to invest in the Ellsworth Commons location. If all goes as planned, they will open their doors there on March 1. It will be a retailonly shop, and all products will be baked in Mechanicville. Seating will be available for those who want to enjoy their food on the premises.

The Malta menu will include cakes, pies, pastries, breads, and breakfast sandwiches served on homemade bread. The bakery will have a freezer stocked with take-and-bake options including garbage bread, pizza dough, and pot pies. They will also have a soup of the week as well as a hot meal of the week. Coffee, espressos, and lattes will be available.

The bakery will feature a daily baked good special including the popular Fairy pop-tart. Available only on Sundays, the pop-tarts are made with a pie crust recipe passed down from Blair’s grandmother.

“We don’t follow fads and trends. We use tried and true recipes,” said Blair. “We are a true oldfashioned, from-scratch bakery, and 99.9 percent of what we sell we are making ourselves.”

Malta will also be the bakery’s custom cake hub.

With the opening of her second store, she plans to double her staff from 6 employees to 12. Blair is hiring experienced bakers and cake decorators.

The Sugar Fairy Bakes Malta hours are Monday-Friday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday-Sunday 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. The hours may be extended based on customer demand.

For more information, visit www.thesugarfairybakes.com

BY JILL NAGY

Mocha Lisa’s Caffe has new owners and a slightly different location.

The business is still in the Clifton Park Mall but in a larger space some 260 feet from its former location.

It is much larger, with more tables and has a selection of new and used books for sale. It is now more of a place for people to relax, according to Nicole Van Zandt, one of the new owners.

The new owners, Van Zandt and her husband, Roland, and her brothers Colin and Alan Hughes, are longtime Mocha Lisa’s customers, now on the other side of the counter.

They bought the name, the furniture and other contents and are keeping the staff. They will continue to serve a special blend of coffee from Capital City Roasters and are negotiating a contract with a supplier of teas and honey.

They purchased the business on November and moved into the space in December.

One big change will be the addition of a commercial oven for Van Zandt’s baked goods. For now, the staff can bake some small breads and muffins in a small oven on the premises but she bakes most of the shop’s pastries at home. That will change as soon as the new oven and exhaust hood are installed and permitted.

The baked goods are popular, Van Zandt said.

“We can’t keep our scones on the shelf” and her brownies are also popular, she said.

The menu includes coffee drinks and a variety of paninis. Once the new oven is in use, the variety of pastries will expand

The business does not have a liquor license but that is a possibility for the future.

Van Zandt was an enthusiastic baker and in 2022 she found that she was baking too much for her small household. She began a business selling baked goods out of her home.

She and her co-owners long dreamed of owning and operating a coffee shop, possibly as a retirement project. When they learned that Mocha Lisa’s was for sale, she said, they jumped at the chance to live out their dream—although all of them are in their early 30s and far from retirement. They all have day jobs and are at the coffee shop mainly on weekends.

Van Zandt said the shop’s clientele has become more varied since they moved to the new, larger, quarters. She is seeing more high schoolers and young families, along with ladies who arrive for lunch. “It is a place for everybody,” she said.

Five staff members from the previous incarnation of the cafe have remained. The new owners have since hired two more.

Although customers can take things out from the shop, there is no regular take-out operation. “We are too busy for now,” Van Zandt said, to gear up for a full take-out operation.

Mocha Lisa’s Caffe is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. They have some evening activities including a monthly trivia night, and monthly board game nights. The telephone number is 518 383-5373.

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Publication Date: March 9, 2023