AVALON – Kohler’s Bakery, in Avalon, has served locals and visitors alike for nearly 75 years, but summer 2023 might be its last.
Colleen Quinn-Maxwell has run the famous bakery for 17 years with her partner, Katie Crompton. She announced via Facebook and confirmed via an interview with the Herald that the building that houses the bakery is for sale and that unless somebody purchases the business and continues to operate it, this coming summer will be Kohler’s last hurrah.
“Our landlord gave us the option to purchase our part of the building. They wanted to keep Kohler’s going,” Quinn-Maxwell said. “Some people are trying to make it out like they are evil landlords, but they just want to retire, and they have always been good to me. I am not in a position – I used to have a partner, but I bought her out after she retired – to make that kind of purchase,” she said.
Quinn-Maxwell said that she has been proud to run the bakery alongside Crompton.
“We were a dynamic duo of women in business,” she said. “I am so grateful that we had so many fun times, but also hard equipment failures where we just cried wondering how we would make it through the day.”
Quinn-Maxwell bought the business 17 years ago and has been actively involved with its operations ever since. She worked at the bakery from a very young age. She once sold copies of the Philadelphia Inquirer to guests waiting in line for a fresh confection.
Like Britton’s Gourmet Bakery, in Wildwood Crest, long lines at Kohler’s have long been part of the charm. Families and out-of-town visitors would gather there to wait for a fresh cream donut or a hand-kneaded sticky bun and to get a pulse of the town during the height of the summer.
For those who haven’t been to the bakery before, Quinn-Maxwell recommends their cream donut. She said that she forgets the legacy that the donut has.
“Sometimes, I’ll just be standing in the store and eat one and will say, ‘Dang, these really are as good as they say,’” she said.
The bakery has been featured on regional ‘best of’ lists for years.
Though there is still a final summer to look forward to, Quinn-Maxwell said that she sympathizes with the pain that locals expressed when she made the announcement on Facebook.
“I understand that people are hurt by the announcement, especially since so many other local businesses have changed or closed down during the years,” she said.
She referenced Nino’s Pizza moving to Stone Harbor and other small businesses shuttering over the years.
“But I had to make decisions that make sense for my family and my future. With the economy being so difficult over the past few years, it has been really hard on a lot of us,” she said.
The Facebook announcement of the bakery’s final season stirred a lot of emotions. It whipped up hundreds of comments in a single day. Many commenters encouraged her to move offshore where land is cheaper. Quinn-Maxwell said that the current location is perfectly set up to fit their needs. It was big enough to accommodate an increase in production as supply increased.
“It’s so easy for people to say, ‘Haven’t you thought of this?’ But the way our bakery runs is very specific. It’s not just pulling merchandise out of a box. It takes a very specific facility to make this bakery successful,” she said.
She referenced a surge in land prices in Avalon since the start of the Covid pandemic, and expressed fears that some of her long-time customers are “getting priced out of being able to come to the town they have always rented in.”
But Quinn-Maxwell’s primary emotion was one of gratitude. She said that she is “deeply grateful for customers and local business owners who have supported her for many years.”
The future is not set in stone, she stressed. There is still a chance that somebody purchases the business and continues to operate it as-is. But for now, Kohler’s Bakery is bracing for closure.
Contact the author, Collin Hall, at chall@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 156.
