Hurst Bakery has been treating customers with baked goodies for 38 years, most of their years at their current Yonge Street location in Aurora.
“Lee was a baker since high school,” begins Pauline Hurst, “he worked all over (Toronto).
“The joke was: ‘If I’m going to work that hard, I’m going to work for myself.’ Unknowingly, you work harder for yourself, usually, than you do for other people.”
Pauline traces her roots back four generations in Aurora, so that’s where they decided to open up their shop.
They were first located in a small space in a strip plaza just south of their current store. They were there, employing about three people, for five years before deciding to move to bigger digs. In 1991, they found themselves in the location they still occupy at the north end of Aurora.
“At the time, the Aurora Fruit Market was beside us and Maunders Food Shop and then there was us, so there was the butcher, baker and fruit store, which all makes sense,” she recalls. “Now we have an optometrist and a pot shop.”
They’re happy with the space, although they don’t have sit-down, so it’s takeout only. But they do have retail space in the front portion where they sell gift items such as mugs and napkins, along with the baked goods. The back is where the baking crew creates their magic using fresh fruit, dairy and butter.
The bakery now employs a crew of 20, about 10 full time and the rest part time. Almost everything is made from scratch – bread, Danishes, pastries, cakes, muffins, as well as special-occasion pastry plates and customized cakes. They also bring in a few products, like Gryfe's bagels from Toronto.
The Christmas goodies are now being rolled out for the store’s busiest season when it’s not unusual to see lineups out the door.
Hurst Bakery is so known for its gingerbread men, they are part of the shop’s logo and sign. Pauline assumes it’s the taste and the quality, but she isn’t sure how it became and continues to be so popular.
“We laugh about it because he has paid the rent for the last 38 years. So he’s our most popular little takeaway item, other than cakes, cream cakes and butter cream cakes,” she says.
The gingerbread men began, as many of their products do, with one of the recipes Lee has collected over the years. They’ve all been developed into something specific for Hurst Bakery and the gingerbread men quickly became something that was universally loved, even by those who didn’t particularly care for gingerbread cookies.
The Hursts managed to keep the bakery open during the pandemic, operating as an essential service. As a result they were able to maintain most of the staff, but did cut back on their hours.
While running their full-service bakery they raised three boys – all of whom were involved in the bakery in some way growing up. The eldest now works as a baker in the shop. One set up his own frozen yogurt business in the shop when he was a teenager and lost interest, allowing staff to enjoy the rest of the yogurt. The third wasn’t interested in baking, but enjoyed decorating the gingerbread men.
And at Christmas, they all come back to help out.
“It’s a happy place to shop,” says Pauline. “We’re lucky to be able to do something like this.
“It’s just a feel-good place for people to shop when the rest of the world is in turmoil.”
Hurst Bakery is at 15543 Yonge St., Aurora, 905-841-0278.
