Turning adversity into opportunity with cakes, coffee and charisma

STARTING a local bakery can be tough, especially if you opened a small business a week before lockdowns in 2020.

This was the case for Bake Barn in Rathcoole and its owner Malwina Wojwoda.

“It was a tough time, we opened on March 9 and the lockdown began on March 16,” recalled Malwina.

However, the forced closures did not go to waste for Malwina and her partner, a carpenter – they used this time to renovate the premises.

Malwina already operated a beauty salon’ ‘His & Hers Micropigmentation Clinic – on Main Street in Rathcoole village, so they renovated a larger part of the unit for the bakery (50 sq m) compared to the salon

(20 sq m).

The hard work and patience paid off, as the bakery is now renowned for its freshly baked sourdough bread, pastry, crêpes and cakes, made from scratch in-store each day, with rave reviews on social media by clients.

“We serve speciality coffee from El Salvador which is roasted in Poland by a champion winner of Poland and Ireland who I sourced. I tasted a lot of coffee to get the right one. Our clients love it, nice and strong in taste,” she said.

Living in Ireland for 14 years, Malwina, from Poland, comes from a family with a baking tradition. Her grandfather ran a bakery in their native Wroclaw.

While starting the beauty salon many years ago, it was always her dream to keep that bakery tradition going, and after many location changes, Rathcoole proved to be the perfect fit for the dream to become reality.

“Initially we were on the Long Mile Road, but looking to expand, we moved to Sandyford, then to Malahide, but there was a lot of travelling involved,” said Malwina, who lives in Newcastle with her partner.

“Rathcoole was big enough to create another shop. We had some savings, so decided to go for it.”

Surviving lockdowns, Malwina now employs four people and plans to expand the menu, while also exploring the possibility of outdoor dining areas at the front and back, which, if approved by authorities, will complement four existing sit-in tables at Bake Barn.

Malwina feels that lots of people still don’t know about the business, but that looks set to change as they have been accepted into the SuperValu Academy this year, starting in September.

“We have lots of things to be done, but we have the capacity to bake more, and are starting work on white wheat and multi-seed,” said Malwina.

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