Sadie and Josie’s Bakery has been a staple in the La Center food scene for over 18 years, and continues to expand its offerings to treat the taste buds of more customers each year.
Sisters Sadie Shapovalov and Josie Hubler, along with their mother, Sharon Martin, own the La Center baker and have found great joy in providing the smaller Clark County community with fresh goods. The area’s growth, however, has allowed them to reach a greater customer base through the years.
Shapovalov said more residents in both Ridgefield and their homebase of La Center have impacted day-to-day operations and have made the holiday season, which is right around the corner, “even more crazy.”
In 2020, they expanded outside of Clark County and opened a location on the coast in Long Beach, a popular vacation spot for Clark County residents. Shapovalov said a lot of people found them at their coastal location before they found the La Center bakery.
Sometimes the La Center clientele base expands to Long Beach because the bakery’s Clark County customers have retired and moved to the coast, Martin said.
Whether visiting the La Center location or Long Beach, the bakery’s offerings have something for everyone.
“There are a lot of bakeries now that choose their specialties. You get donut shops. You get bread shops. We’re like the old-fashioned bakery where we do a little bit of everything,” Shapovalov said. “We’re not a deli so we don’t do sandwiches and stuff, but we do breads, we do biscuits, we do cinnamon rolls, pastries, cakes, pies. Our pies and everything are made from scratch. We do cookies, we do candies, we make our candies and sourdoughs. We have 16 different flavors of sourdough.”
Two of the sourdough starters, one from Germany, the other from California, used at Sadie and Josie’s Bakery are over 200 years old, Shapovalov said.
In store, the only item that isn’t made entirely from scratch in the bakery is its donuts. Their donuts are made from a mix made by an outside source but are fried and offered fresh every morning, Shapovalov said.
“It’s hard to find donuts that are in-shop. A lot of them are frozen or reheated,” she said.
Oftentimes, social media posts in north Clark County community groups pop up on weekends and ask where fresh donuts can be found, and people in the know point them to Sadie and Josie’s Bakery.
“We do make our donuts fresh every single morning. They’re usually out and ready by 7 o’clock, and we’re starting to increase our variety again,” Shapovalov said. “We used to do a much bigger variety, and then COVID, we kind of scaled things down … but we’re starting to bring some of those back again.
For Hubler, operating a bakery in La Center adds to the small-town lifestyle that is shared by residents.
“I think it just gives kids and people somewhere to stop. I mean, do you want to run clear into town because you forgot your loaf of bread?” Hubler said. “For us, we have a lot of people who can eat our sourdough and can’t eat other breads because of intolerance. That’s their staple of some enjoyment in their meal, getting to add that in there. And I mean, we have such great customers, they’ve gone out of their way, even during COVID, to just make sure they were supporting us, and we are grateful for all of them.”
Sadie and Josie’s Bakery is open from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Mondays; from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays; and 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturdays at at 582 NW Pacific Highway in La Center. It can be reached by calling 360-263-6200. For more information, visit sadie-josies-bakery.com.
