Where Good Things Rise
Iron Kettle Commissary: A Community Story
This story begins, as so many good stories do, with a loaf of bread.
When the world shut down in March 2020, Ginette Tremblay and Ben Leblanc-Beaudoin watched the business they had spent years building come to a halt. The Iron Kettle Bed and Breakfast had become known for weddings, celebrations and weekend escapes. Then, almost overnight, bookings disappeared, events were cancelled, and guests stopped coming. It was all due to the covid-19 pandemic and regulations outside of their control.
So Ben, a trained chef, did what came naturally.
"I can make bread," Ginette remembers him saying.
What started with a handful of sourdough loaves baked from their B&B kitchen, slowly evolved into something neither of them could have imagined at the time.
Today, the Iron Kettle Commissary is one of southwestern Ontario's most beloved bakeries. Hundreds of loaves of bread leave the ovens every week. Thousands of croissants are handmade over the course of seven days. Visitors happily line up outside the doors, sometimes driving for hours for a pistachio-cream-filled croissant and a perfectly crafted latte.
I always think about those places when you're on vacation, that one little coffee shop you can't stop thinking about. I really do believe that's how people feel when they come here.
"Our story is that we are a husband-and-wife team who have always been passionate about hospitality and community," Ginette says.
Long before the bakery existed, the couple had purchased a historic building in downtown Comber with the idea of one day opening a fine dining restaurant that could cater to their B&B clientele. The pandemic changed those plans completely.
They shut down the B&B and instead opened the Commissary in the building they once hoped to build a restaurant.
What surprised them was how much happier the simpler business model made them.
"We liked the stability. We loved that feeling of selling what we have. If we don't have it, well, we don't sell it," Ginette says.
Visitors arriving at Iron Kettle find a beautiful display of croissants, pastries, breads and prepared foods, all made in-house.
"As I tell our customers, we make everything but the honey, maple syrup and coffee beans!"
Ginette admits they've received plenty of suggestions over the years.
"'You should have white French bread.' 'You should make dinner rolls.' 'You should do this.' 'You should do that.'"
She smiles.
"We have to be firm on what we stand for or we will lose the uniqueness," she says. "My husband and I want to sell very unique items that you can only get at the Iron Kettle."
It's a philosophy that's helped build a fiercely loyal following.
The bakery may be known for its yummy baked products, but Ginette believes people return for something else entirely.
"I always think of those places when you're on vacation," she says. "That one little coffee shop you can't stop thinking about. I really do believe that's how people feel when they come here."
Some visitors stop on their way to another destination. Many stop again on the drive home. Others plan entire road trips around the bakery, travelling from London, Sarnia and beyond just to spend a morning in Comber.
Word of mouth remains their greatest advertisement.
"I love when people say, Our Airbnb host told us we had to stop here," Ginette says. "That's amazing."
Ginette is often out front, speaking to customers, building relationships, and establishing community.
She remembers one customer who came in the early days of the bakery with a newborn baby, sat and read a book for a couple of hours while the baby slept. This woman has now become a good friend, and Ginette has just met her second child.
"There's hundreds of people that I've now met and we've become part of the ritual of their week or their month or their happiness, and they've become part of ours."
Sometimes Ginette and Ben feel the pressure of their success, with some pushing them to expand or franchise.
"We live in a world that always wants more of everything," she says. "But as I try to tell them, you like it here because we are real people, we are a real couple, a real community business, a real family that's grown around this business. If you want real people, you can't have more. You can't have it all."
For Ginette, the joy is in the conversations and the human interactions. She loves to hear where the Iron Kettle products are going — Will the scones be enjoyed on a cottage deck with a good book? Will the pastries be shared at a birthday celebration?
She relishes in the stories.
"And I love when people bring their visitors here," Ginette says. "When they have out-of-town visitors and they bring them here and can't wait to see us and share us with their visitors. It's like they're sharing this small gem with them, you know? That's really special."