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Celebrity Service ALWAYS SAYING “YES” LEADS TO LOCAL BAKERY’S SUCCESS. BY ANGELA JOHNSON
30 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2021
PHOTOS BY CHRIS EMEOTT
St. Croix Baking Company owner, chef Charles Froke, was busy in the kitchen when I visited his shop on a Monday, a day it’s typically closed to the public. He’d been attending to a big bowl of some creamy, chocolatey creation when I arrived. There’s rarely a day off for this busy baker who braved an uncertain business environment to open St. Croix Baking Company in Hudson, Wis. in 2020. Passers-by would see us inside and pop in for a peek. Froke wouldn’t dream of turning any customer away. Never saying “no” is part of Froke’s persona after years as a professional pastry chef for a Four Seasons luxury hotel on the east coast. “If Oprah was at our hotel and wanted a cake, I’d drop everything and bake her a cake,” says Froke. “Whenever possible, I don’t say ‘no.’” That mentality permeates Froke’s new business. If a customer asks, “What do you have,” Froke replies with, “What do you want?” Froke’s passion for baking goes back to his childhood in Minnesota. Both of his grandmothers and his mother often baked. “My grandma taught me to bake monster cookies,” says Froke who then points to packages of monster cookies for sale at St. Croix Baking Company, his grandmother’s recipe. Yes please! He also has fond memories of making spritz cookies at the holidays and building gingerbread houses with his mother, a skill that would be refined and carried forward to Froke’s professional creation of some impressively huge gingerbread houses. But the stress of his corporate gig led Froke to lean into his dream of “doing his own thing.” Local restaurateur Pete Foster is a friend of Froke’s and helped review a business plan. “I started to get more serious about [opening my own business] around Thanksgiving 2019
