By Daphne Jackson
Stephen Barnes said the decision to open Hunny Cakes, 307 W. Main in Hamilton, is a culmination of an aspiration his wife, Elizabeth Malmevik, has had for several years.
“We were living in Illinois, and I looked at the wife, and I said ‘what do you want to do?’ and she said ‘I want a bakery’,” he said. “And now, here, three years later, we finally found the right place and the right time, and it’s open. She’s very excited.”
Barnes said the idea to combine a bakery with a game store came from his now business partner, who had heard of several other successful businesses that use similar combinations of food and gaming.
“Knowing that today we have to have multiple things going at once, especially just getting started, it made a lot of sense to do a game store and a bakery with the walls being consignment,” Barnes said.
He said there are no specific rules for what he allows in the consignment store, so long as it looks good in the bakery. He said the consignment aspect of the store is different from most consignment places because of its fee policy.
“We don’t have you come in and work for two days, you don’t pay a commission, you just pay straight wall rent,” he said. “A lot of people seem to like that, because that means whatever they price their stuff at, that’s what they’re getting. They don’t have to mark up to compensate for consignment fees.”
The main products of the bakery are traditional items, such as cookies, cupcakes and brownies, but with one key ingredient changed.
“All of our cookies are 100 percent sugar free; they just have honey in them,” he said. “And everything that we make, we take as much of the processed sugars and stuff out as we can and replace it with local honey that we get from Darby.”
He said the shop focuses on products that aren’t typically available in other locations, and isn’t trying to compete with any other local businesses. In addition to the variety of baked goods available, Hunny Cakes offers soups for lunch, made-to-order cakes, and artisan sodas Barnes makes in-house.
“I’m also going to be doing in-house-made energy drinks so that we know specifically what’s in it in what amounts, so everybody who walks through the door can feel good about either themselves or their kids purchasing anything we have,” he said. “I like being healthy while eating good things.”
Barnes said the business has faced some challenges, most of which are expected issues for any new business, such as cash flow, and some of which are related to going to college while being a parent and a business owner.
“Finding time, with being a fulltime college student, and taking care of Penny (his daughter), and her working full time as well while doing this so we can try to make sure the doors stay open long enough to stay open,” he said. “The first rule of business is to stay open long enough to stay in business.”
He said the business intends to offer something for everyone in the community. One of the ways the bakery attempts this is to offer wheat-free options in the baked goods section. Barnes said Hunny Cakes unfortunately can’t sell gluten-free items, because state regulations require a second kitchen to qualify, and the bakery only has one kitchen. Barnes said that the kitchen is cleaned up very well between batches of regular items and wheat-free ones, which makes it very unlikely that someone would come into contact with gluten by mistake.
Barnes said he would like for the shop to become a well-known location within the community at some point.
“I’d like for this to be a household name, so to speak. Around here, if you say, ‘Bell McCall,’ everybody kind of knows what you’re talking about, because they’ve been around here forever, everybody knows them, people trust them, things like that,” he said. “I’d like the same thing here, to where when somebody goes ‘hmm, I want a cake, where should I go?’ they’re not going to the big chain stores, they’re going to where we’re going to make it personally for them, put a lot of dedication into it, and make it look right.”
The store presently has a variety of items from tabletop games based on imagination to “Chess on Steroids,” which involves controlling an army against an opponent. Barnes said he wants to expand the selection of games into better-known classic games as well.
Michael West, who works at the newly opened shop, said working there has been a little lonely so far, since there haven’t been a lot of people in the store yet. He said he expects things to pick up over time as more people find out about the store.
“The thing that we do that most other game stores don’t is, all the stuff on the walls, you can actually take off and use before you decide to buy it,” West said.
“We want a place that everybody can come,” he said. “We’re about to start getting standard games that we grew up with. Candyland, checkers, chess, and all those fun games that we played when we were kids that we liked to play as a family. We’re going to get those in here, and you’ll be able to come in and have the board there on the table in front of you, and play with your family in a nice environment.”
Barnes said he hopes to see the shop become a place where people can spend time playing games with each other, high school students can come to socialize and families can enjoy time together.
“Long story short, I’m trying to pick up where A Place to Ponder left off,” Barnes said. “They had a really awesome following; they were busy almost every hour they were open. They had a really nice environment that people could come and sit and relax, talk, drink coffee, and that’s what I’m trying to create.”
Hunny Cakes is located at 307 W. Main in Hamilton. Hours are: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 5 to 10 p.m. on Thursdays, and closed on Sundays.