By Cheryl Jahn

Pastry Chef closing up shop next month

Nov 5, 2021 | 3:49 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – It has been a mainstay in the downtown since 1955. That’s when the Pastry Chef opened its doors for the first time. In 1985, Karl and Petra Haus bought it from the previous owner.

“It was a very long and rocky road. It was hard to build up success because the [previous] owner and they were only worried about the money in the till and not what was around it. So to clean it and do it is a German-style and build it up from the bottom was a lot of work but it was successful in the end.”

Hiring has been a challenge.

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“Finding suitable workers,” responded Karl Haus when asked about a big challenge. “I’d rather hire people who are the proverbial empty glass that I can fill with my knowledge and my skills and training than to get somebody than has previous experience, brings it with him, and then tries to change things.”

The couple began dreaming of retirement more than ten years ago and tried to sell the bakery. But there were no takers.

“It’s been over ten years we’ve been trying to sell but we have three factors. We were selling night shift, work. Not a job. And responsibility. And that word is a strange word for a lot of people these days.”

And, of course, they’ve had their run-ins downtown.

“Everybody knows this downtown got out of hand. And the City, they really don’t care. Because the taxes went up like crazy. We had break-ins of employees’ cars. Up to seven. We had three break-ins in the bakery. A lot of money was at stake and lots of repairs. I lost a lot of people due to that.”

So they have decided to shelve the mixers for good and the bakery will be open only until December 4th.