(Richmond Bakery circa 2014. Photo via Google Streetview.)
UPDATE, OCTOBER 8: The Goulbourn Museum’s Curator Manager Kathryn Jamieson sent along this note:
“Goulbourn Museum wants to preserve the history of the Richmond Bakery. If community members have any small items such as old price lists, bread bags, or other memorabilia with the bakery name on them, they would love to hear from you. We would also like to collect anecdotes and photographs from the 75 years the Richmond Bakery was in business. Local residents can email me directly at: kathryn@goulbournmuseum.ca.”
As for the Richmond Bakery sign, Jamieson says it’s wonderful that it will be auctioned to raise money for the Richmond Food Bank: “We hope that whoever purchases the sign in the auction can give it a good home. Although we’d love to preserve it, Goulbourn Museum is simply too small and we wouldn’t have the storage space.”
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The familiar Richmond Bakery sign will be auctioned off later this year when the building reopens as Danby’s Road House.
When the Richmond Bakery shut its doors in August 2014, there was interest in the bakery sign from both the community and collectors, including the Goulbourn Museum.
Deb Mallett plans to lease the property and turn the old bakery into a pub-style restaurant. Mallett owns the family-run restaurant Danby’s Bar and Grill in Munster.
“There was a lot of people who wanted the sign,” said Mallett. “It does belong to the owner of the building. He wanted to give it away, but I convinced him to auction it off when we open and to donate all of the proceeds to the Richmond Food Bank.”
The sign is still on the front of the building, but Mallett said they would be taking it down soon so that it does not get damaged when construction for the restaurant begins.
Elaine Orr was the former accountant for the Richmond Bakery. When the bakery closed last year, she said there were many requests for the sign.
“One of the very first calls that I got was from the Goulbourn Museum,” said Orr. “That was within the first few days.”
The curator manager at the Goulbourn Museum, Kathryn Jamieson, said in an email that the museum was interested in the sign and “in gaining access to the site to take photographs and see if there might be any remaining bakery items, like older equipment, photographs, corporate records or branded packaging.”
Jamieson said the Goulbourn Museum aims to “disseminate the material and oral history of the Goulbourn community by collecting, preserving, displaying and interpreting local artefacts.”
“As a Registered Charity we do not have an acquisition budget, so all of the artefacts in the collection have either been donated by residents of this community or families with ancestral ties to the area,” she said.
Mallett said that the landlord showed her the building on the day it was purchased, and by the next day the place was almost empty.
“It’s too bad that there weren’t more items that were saved,” said Mallett. “And it’s also too bad because the previous owner had the option of keeping some of those items or putting them into the museum before he left.”
Mallett said that she was able to rescue a few items, and that one of the old cookbooks will be on display in the restaurant. Mallett’s property lease begins in October, and after construction, she said she hopes the new venture will be open by the end of this year. She said the sign auction will take place sometime around the restaurant opening.
After a five minute interview (on the sign, the only thing they wanted to talk about) they asked me if I had any thing else to add, I said YES! I told them how great the landlord had been honouring his word through challenges and how we would be creating 40 jobs in Richmond and area, that we were using local contractors and the local banks. In our economy, which has had many challenges, I’m surprised and disappointed they weren’t interested the positives deriving from this project (which I told them) including turning the sign into a positive by donating all proceeds to the Richmond Food Bank. They asked why the food bank, and I responded that being in this business everyone should have the opportunity to have food on the table.
Great stuff Deb.