At the next Inventors and Entrepreneurs Club meeting March 12, speaker Joyce Quarnstrom shares “Lessons from My Backyard Business.”
The idea for Kvarnstrom’s Bakery started as a joke years ago, at a family lefse making event. Three years ago the owner took apart an old shed in her backyard and put it back together to launch a Swedish bakery. Today, Kvarnstrom’s Bakery is fully-certified and a completely family-run company specializing in Scandinavian and local favorites in Westby.
The bakery supplies local grocery stores and other businesses with baked goods, assorted Swedish and Norwegian pastries, cookies, pies, scones, lefse, flatbread, kransekaka, sandbakkels, and other specialty items. It also serves special occasions, weddings, and other catering events.
Joyce Quarnstrom and her husband (also a baker), Gordon Vande Voorde, hail from South Dakota, but transplanted themselves in Westby 15 years ago. Joyce began baking part time at the Driftless Cafe, then at Borgen’s when they reopened. Radio listeners also know Joyce as a regular on WDRT’s “Who’s in the Kitchen” talk show. Gordon works full time at WCCU. Both are influenced by the traditional baking of their mothers and fathers - German, Scandinavian and Belgian recipes are those most often seen in the bakery.
Their daughter, Emma, does try to bring some modernity to the business with chocolate covered cherries and a few trips to Norway and Germany to bring back more recipes for the books. Their outlets are at Viroqua Farmer’s Market, Blue Dog Cycles, Ole and Lena’s, and the Tangled Hickory Wine Bar.
Plan to attend at the Food Enterprise Center, 1201 North Main Street in Viroqua. Networking starts at 5:30, the program begins at 6 p.m.
The I&E club is organized jointly by the Crawford County Economic Development Corporation, Vernon Economic Development Association and Viroqua Chamber Main Street.
For more information, contact David Connolly at dcnnlly@gmail.com or 326-0234, Sue Noble at snoble@veda-wi.org or 638-8332, or Emily Rozeske at viroquapartners@gmail.com or 637-2575. Meetings are free and no reservations are required.
