Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1342831
103 a single week in March 2020, nearly every plan at Topsfield Bakeshop was wiped from the calendar. The 15-year-old store, which operates the wildly popular Whoo(pie) Wagon—a fixture at area festivals, corporate events, and colleges—saw its schedule vanish, including the bakery's thriving wedding cake business, in an unexpected instant. This, at a time when owners Mary and Chris Bandereck were in the home stretch of building an expanded facility with extensive kitchen space on Route 1 in Topsfield. "We were in too deep to turn around," Mary says of the construction project. "We had to figure something out or we'd lose everything." They were far from alone—all across the North Shore, and really around the world, successful businesses were suddenly fighting for their lives. The solutions have taken on a lot of different looks—everything from selling flour and toilet paper to teaching cooking classes on Zoom has helped places survive the pandemic. For Topsfield Bakeshop, the saving grace was adding savory meals—soups, chicken pot pies, and other comfort foods—kept them going while they ramped up mail order and started driving their Whoo(pie) Wagon anyplace it was requested. "We've been saying yes to everyone and everything," Mary says, noting that a pop-up at 3rd Ave. Burlington, combined with visiting places like the Cruiseport in Gloucester to deliver pre-ordered treats, has kept them afloat. "Anyone can call and have us come anywhere," she notes, so their schedule is now packed with fundraisers for local foundations, small corporate events, Over Above and right, In addition to sweet treats, Whoo(pie) Wagon offers savory items such as falafal. Below, Ledger Baskets provide full meals. PHOTOGRAPHS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT, BY SYDNEY SHEEHAN, BY KINDRA CLINEFF, AND COURTESY OF LEDGER RESTAURANT & BAR and even drive-by birthday parties—events that would have been too small in the past to warrant rolling out the wagon. Topsfield Bakeshop isn't alone in launching the unimaginable over the course of the past year—just ask Matt O'Neil. The owner of Ledger Restaurant & Bar in Salem sold toilet paper and flour last spring, and has trotted out numerous other ideas, from selling grocery items as "Ledger Basket" to fast-food style burgers as "Ledger Jr." "I don't know how many concepts we actually did since March, but it was a lot," O'Neil says. "And every single time, it's almost like opening a new restaurant." After taking most of January off to regroup, Ledger launched yet another new concept O'Neil hopes will carry them through to the spring: a subscription- based prepared food service they're calling "Ledger Basket Club." For $400 per month, plus tax and tip, members will get to choose four different meal boxes, each feeding three to four people, with themes like tacos or brunch. "It's a fusion of other models we've seen— one that I think will work well with the Ledger