There’s a new neighborhood bakery taking shape in the Arts District of Benton Harbor. Becky Atkinson will open The Sourdough House and Coffee Bar, hopefully in August, at 234 Territorial Road, Benton Harbor. That’s about a block from the Brick House restaurant and near the Richard Hunt Art Studio.
Atkinson has been working with the Women’s Business Center at Cornerstone Alliance to make her dream come true of opening a bakery. She talked about it on WSJM’s Morning Show with Ken Lundberg …
“I’ve always loved to cook. I’m a Southern woman—from three generations of Southern women that love to spend their time in the kitchen and sharing with food. And so, Sourdough has just become an extension of that. And it was something that I really, really enjoyed when I started my Sourdough journey.”
Atkinson said her passion for Sourdough grew sort of organically from her kitchen to her neighborhood to friends all over!
“I found that I was making more and more bread. I needed to share more and more bread. And I just asked my family on a whim if we could maybe just do some porch pickups, like, can I just put it out there and see– can I share this with our community?
And that kind of took off, it seemed to hit. And so from there, it’s just grown. And we have had a beautiful opportunity to move from a cottage food bakery into a retail space in the Benton Harbor Arts District. We’re just thrilled and excited to be a part of the community and to share this on a larger scale.”
Atkinson said it’s been fun—a labor of love, really, transforming the new space into The Sourdough House.
“it’s gonna be a great location. And we’re enjoying building out the space and making it our own and seeing it transformed into a really warm, inviting space for our community. My daughter Sophie will be running our coffee bar. And then I have Brittany as well. Brittany is responsible for our sweet treats, all of our cookies and she does a great job at crafting those delicious flavors with sourdough as well.”
Atkinson is appreciative for the help she’s received from the Women’s Business Center, but most of all the inspiration she’s taken from family and friends.
“it’s been amazing really. We started Sourdough House just a little over a year ago and then almost on a whim, we decided to check out a space in the Benton Harbor Arts District because we knew that we were outgrowing cottage food laws. There was gonna need to be a transition of some sort
and we were trying to figure out what that would look like. We reached out to the owner of the building, Tim Flynn. He’s been amazing and just made us an offer and gave us an opportunity that we felt like was an open door that we needed to walk through.That was in May. And we’re hoping to open yet in August. I guess if you don’t know different, you just go with it. I’m just one of those people that always thought I could cook… it was just part of who I was. It’s kind of the same with this. I haven’t been to restaurant school, I’m a home cook and it’s just something that I’ve enjoyed sharing. This is just part of that. So why not open up a bakery and coffee bar in three and a half months?”
You can learn more about Becky Atkinson and her ‘Sourdough Journey’—and order some bread—at www.sourdoughhouse.net
