When Emily Woodward Tracy left the South Pole behind to chase a dream in her hometown, she said she was committed to making it last at least a year.
Get Baked, the bakery she opened in 2012 on the corner of the Central Street Antiques and Auctions building, made it through the year — and then some.
But the bakery, which has a healthy following both in and outside of Windsor, will close just after its 7th anniversary, which falls on Valentine’s Day, Woodward Tracy said.
“Feb. 23 will be our last day,” she said. “We’ll be here long enough to celebrate our birthday.”
And celebrate they will, with a pop-up market planned for the last day of operation, followed by a burlesque show performance by the Beat City Beauties.
“We wanted to do something fun and different,” Woodward Tracy said.
A lot has changed since Woodward Tracy brought the baking skills she learned at the McMurdo Station, a U.S. Antarctic research facility, back to Windsor. She now has two children and is married to Kevin Tracy, who continued to date her while she was at the South Pole and started as a dishwasher at Get Baked.
Woodward Tracy said she’s surprised the endeavor lasted as long as it did; , she didn’t expect to experience so much widespread support, but she thinks it’s because she, Tracy and her employees made personal connections with customers and people liked the fun vibe of the bakery.
“That’s the biggest thing I’m going to miss,” Woodward Tracy said.
Longtime customer Wayne Dombkowski described the bakery as family-oriented and dedicated to serving the community.
“It was a great, cool, funky, going back to the 70s kind of place,” he said.
But it’s time to close up shop, for a variety of reasons, Woodward Tracy said. She cited the uncertainty of doing business in Connecticut, recent serious health issues that have left her and Tracy reassessing their futures, and the difficulty of balancing work and family life.
“It would be fair to say that our recent health issues have made us realize that we need to figure out a better way to make this work so that we can actually live our lives and enjoy our family in a way that we can’t do here right now,” Woodward Tracy said.
To that end, Woodward Tracy said they won’t rule out a return to the bakery business at some point, under the Get Baked banner.
“We have irons in the fire,” she said.
Adam Gutcheon, a Windsor native who became executive director of the Windsor Chamber of Commerce in December, said his organization will do everything it can to help Get Baked find a new location that fits their needs and reopen.
“When I moved back to town, so many people I met told me how special Get Baked was them,” Gutcheon said. “It has truly become a beloved community gathering place over the past seven years, a part of the fabric of Windsor, and their closing is Windsor’s loss.”
In the meantime, Woodward Tracy said she is putting together a Get Baked yearbook and inviting friends and customers to be a part of it. There will be photo sessions at the bakery Feb. 9 from 9 a.m. to noon, and Feb. 17 from noon to 2 p.m. Woodward Tracy said the plan is to compile the photos and release the yearbook at a party this summer, location to be determined. People can also send pictures to Woodward Tracy at getbakedyearbook@gmail.com.
Steven Goode can be reached at sgoode@courant.com
