TALLMADGE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — A growing West Michigan bakery business is opening a brick-and-mortar location near Marne.

Mother-daughter duo Darci Hoehne and Meghan Jurrians first started Novel Pastries in September of 2021. Jurrians, who was fresh out of culinary school at the time, handled the bakery side, while her mom worked on back-end things like legalities and finances.

The family has a Celtic background, so they started serving pastries like Guinness brownies at local Celtic festivals.

From there, it “just exploded,” Hoehne said.

The two were working out of their kitchen but quickly outgrew cottage law, and they moved to the incubator kitchen in the Downtown Market in Grand Rapids. A West Michigan distillery opened a wholesale account with the pair, carrying their cheesecakes, and they continued seeing great success at the festivals.

They also built up a base of regulars, like a woman who orders gluten-free cannoli for her granddaughter’s birthday, or another family that frequently orders birthday cakes, including when the husband’s mother turned 101.

Last year, they bought a vintage food trailer — their second, as the first was totaled in a crash before it was delivered to them — that they use at events.

“We love it because it’s super cute. We mostly use it for … small events and pop-ups, but we’d love to eventually use them at weddings and private events for like corporations,” Jurrians said.

Jurrians is now working at the business full-time. Hoehne, who is currently a full-time NICU nurse, hopes to see enough success to drop down to being a part-time nurse.

The goal has always been to open a brick-and-mortar location, though they didn’t think they’d open one so quickly.

“I wasn’t actually expecting it to take off this fast,” Jurrians said. “I had thought maybe in the next year or two, we’d get a storefront.”

Now, they’re getting ready to open a bakery and café at 14345 Ironwood Dr. off of I-96 in Tallmadge Township near Marne.

The storefront is spacious, with room for plenty of tables where people can hang out. It also already had a hood, which the two explained is one of the most expensive parts of opening a restaurant.

They’re working to transform it into a homey, cozy spot for customers.

“We have this vintage-y, antique, eclectic vibe. And so for tables in the dining room, we’re going to have claw-foot oak tables, like solid wood tables,” Hoehne said. “It’s not going to look like the normal, just everyday coffee shop.”

The pair will work to eventually add a book store, which is where the name Novel Pastries comes from.

“Who doesn’t want to read a book while eating a delicious pastry and sipping on some coffee?” Jurrians said. “That was my favorite thing to do in college.”

They’ll start with a lending library, with one for kids and one for adults in what they’ve dubbed the ‘Garden Room.’ Next year, they plan to start bringing in local authors to highlight and to start selling gently used books, before working up to a new bookstore.

Jurrians said community members she’s talked to have loved the idea, though business leaders cautioned that book stores don’t have a big profit margin.

“But I think that the independent book store is coming back,” she said, noting that having food and coffee will be an added draw.

Along with the bakery, there will be a full-service coffee and tea bar, soups and deli sandwiches and gluten-free options. Also on the menu will be book-themed recipes and drinks, like the “Sleepy Hollow” pumpkin spice latte.

They’ll also host events like slam poetry and trivia nights, and they hope to do a cookies with Santa event to celebrate their opening.

The goal is to open the storefront location in November.

Four generations will be represented inside the bakery. They’ll have some of the 300 cookie jars Jurrians’ grandmother owned, along with other items to honor her.

“There’s a couple pieces of her collection that we’re bringing to the bakery to have her with us,” Hoehne said. “One of the pieces is a piano from the 1800s that she restored that’s fully functioning.”

She said guests will be welcome to play the piano inside the store.

Jurrians’ two young kids will also be around often, and she said she’s planning on teaching them both to bake and cook.

The mother-daughter duo said they’ve loved running the business together, and they wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else.