Erie's Ye Ole Sweet Shoppe open after doubling in size, adding room for treats and seats

The expansion allows owner Kelli Graham and staff to display more baked goods, take bigger orders and even offer decorating classes

Erie Times-News

When Kelli Graham, owner of Ye Ole Sweet Shoppe, bought the downtown Erie bakery five years ago, she already knew she wanted to expand.

"People have home kitchens that were bigger than our kitchen," she said.

In order to take bigger orders, host decorating classes and in-house seating, as well as put more display cases for grab-and-gos, she needed to bust out some walls at 402 State St.

The laundromat next door is no more, and she saw her square footage grow from 1,400 to 2,800 feet in the span of three months of construction, during which they were closed twice for a week each time.

Decorating classes in demand

"I wanted to hire people and give classes and have birthday parties, and to do that, we needed to expand," Graham said.

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And hire she has, counter people and a professional cake decorator from Pittsburgh, Renee Rawls, who plans to run the decorating classes.

"Everybody is waiting for the classes," Graham said. "We get daily calls on those and other events."

They've refocused on what they are best at, which is baking and decorating, especially cookies, and have started a cookie of the month, and added a couple of recipes, including one from one of the contractors who did the renovations.

This month's cookie, by the way, is Orange Creamsicle, which has a soft orange-flavored texture with white chocolate chips. Dare you to say no. They also have a few more surprises coming.

"We still have some tricks up our sleeve," Gadd said.

Contact Jennie Geisler at jgeisler@timesnews.com.