Durham Bakery Guglhupf brings sweet treats to Chapel Hill location

The Durham-based Guglhupf Bakery, Café and Restaurant opened a new bakery in Chapel Hill’s Eastgate Crossing shopping center on Tuesday. 

The 1,250 square foot bake shop is roughly the same size as the flagship bakery in Durham, according to a Nov. 28 press release. The bakery offers breads, pastries and desserts all made daily in the Durham location, as well as coffee, tea and espresso drinks and a small selection of grocery items.

Guglhupf owner Claudia Kemmet-Cooper said the store’s opening day went surprisingly smoothly, considering that the delivery process from the Durham bakery to the new Chapel Hill location had never been practiced before. 

“All the plans we laid totally worked out, so that was a really cool thing to have happen,” Kemmet-Cooper said. 

Store manager Melissa Robbins said she was excited to see familiar faces from the Durham location on opening day in Chapel Hill.

"We had a great response, a lot of people seemed happy to see us," Robbins said. 

To ensure that the Chapel Hill bake shop will be able to consistently offer fresh items to their customers throughout the day, Kemmet-Cooper said one of her goals is to learn the shopping patterns of the Eastgate Shopping Center. 

“Being in the same parking lot as a Trader Joe's, there’s going to be a pattern to when the bulk of the people come through,” Kemmet-Cooper said.

The bake shop currently receives three deliveries from the Durham location per day, first receiving breakfast items and then dessert items as they become available. 

The new bakery location will operate on a three phase launch cycle. The store is currently in its first phase, primarily offering its baked goods on a first-come, first-served basis. In the bake shop’s second phase, the store plans to begin accepting pre-orders for bakery items and hopes to expand its hours. In the third and final phase, the bakery hopes to implement an online ordering system which will include personalized birthday cakes and more delicate bakery items.

Kemmet-Cooper said she is excited about the new bake shop’s location because the company will be able to appeal to a new market.  

“The customer base [in Chapel Hill] can appreciate the products that we make,” Kemmet Cooper said.

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