I've got news this week about the opening of Crumb & Co. Roadside Stand near Barre Mills, the upcoming opening of Art House La Crosse on Caledonia Street, and the closings of Bluebird Bakery & Cafe on Copeland Avenue and the Pizza Hut restaurant on Rose Street. Olivia Jones, who makes baked goods under the Heritage Bakes business name, and Leah Hammes, who makes cookies under the Sugar Mama name, have opened the Crumb & Co.
Roadside Stand at N3050 County Hwy. OA, Barre Mills, at the Schomberg farm where Olivia was raised. It's across from the Barre Cemetery.
Jones' husband, Austin Jones, built the roadside stand, which opened June 15. Customers can buy Heritage Bakes and Sugar Mama baked goods and organic eggs, as well as merchandise from 10 other vendors. Regular hours are 10 a.
m. to 7 p.m.
Friday and Saturday, but check Crumb & Co.'s Facebook page for any variations. Jones and Hammes haven't decided whether the stand will be open year-round.
Last weekend, the merchandise from the 10 other vendors included such things as pickles, honey, flavored popcorn, gourmet marshmallows, soaps and jewelry. Customers can buy merchandise that's on display at the stand, or preorder merchandise that they'll pick up there. They can pay with cash or the Venmo payment app.
The roadside stand isn't staffed and customers pay on the honor system. (A security camera is in place.) Jones and Hammes both live nearby and sell their baked goods as vendors at other locations.
They decided to open a roadside stand on County Hwy. OA because it's a heavily-traveled road. It's drawn customers from a wide area, they said.
While Hammes makes a variety of cookies, Jones mostly makes sourdough bread, bagels and cinnamon rolls. For more information, call Jones at 608-769-5273 or Hammes at 608-792-4716 or visit Crumb & Co.'s Facebook page.
Michelle Malone is moving her I&E Dance Studio from the King on 5th building at 505 King St. in downtown La Crosse to the former Debo's Vintage Emporium storefront at 1232 Caledonia St., where she also plans to open her new Art House La Crosse.
Debo's closed earlier this year. Malone opened her dance studio, which offers dance lessons to adults 18 years of age and older, in January 2023. If all goes as planned, she told me this week, it will open Sept.
3 in the new location. She plans to have Art House La Crosse in operation in the same location sometime this fall. Art House La Crosse will be a place to inspire creativity in adults and to explore the beauty of all forms of art, Malone said.
It will offer such things as a work lounge, art workshops, a place where people can use donated materials to make art, live music events, healthy food, beverages and an art store that will sell locally made art. Malone said her dance classes are mostly in the evening and that Art House La Crosse will provide uses for the building in the daytime as well. "I wanted to offer more ways for adults to tap into their creativity," she said of starting the new venture.
She has organized a "Lifted Expanse" outdoor dance concert scheduled for 6 to 9 p.m. this Sunday, Aug.
25, in the backyard of her parents at N4775 Linse Road east of West Salem, to help with the cost of opening Art House La Crosse. It will feature live music by Cass Magpie, yard games, performances by I&E Dance Studio students and viewing of films from last year's Rethink Dance Film Festival in North Dakota. Tickets can be purchased on the www.
iandedancecompany.com website or at the concert. For more information, visit that website, call 608-406-7933 or visit the Facebook pages of I&E Dance Studio and Art House La Crosse.
The Bluebird Bakery & Cafe at 58 Copeland Ave. in La Crosse is permanently closed, according to a sign at the entrance that I noticed earlier this week. The sign also encourages customers to patronize the Bluebird Coffee drive-thru at 317 Sand Lake Road, in the Center 90 shopping center in Onalaska.
The bakery and cafe opened in May 2022 in the former Great Harvest Bread location on Copeland Avenue. Its Onalaska drivethru opened in June 2023. After seeing the Copeland Avenue location had closed, I went to Bluebird's Facebook page and saw an Aug.
6 post that said "It is with heavy hearts that we announce this will be our final week open for Bluebird Bakery & Cafe. We didn't come to this decision lightly, but have found it to be in the best interest for our multiple owners and our families moving forward this time. We will however still have our Bluebird Coffee drive-thru open at our Onalaska Location on Sand Lake Road so we would love your continued support there!" An Aug.
13 post on Bluebird's Facebook page said the Onalaska drive-thru is serving baked goods from Linda's Bakery in West Salem. For more information, check the Facebook page. Aug.
4 was the last day for the Pizza Hut restaurant at 2212 Rose St. in La Crosse, the president of franchisee Eagle Bluff Pizza Partners, LLC, told me this week. As I mentioned in one of my April columns, Eagle Bluff President Brian Baird had told me that Eagle Bluff does not plan to renew its lease on the Rose Street building, which expires Sept.
30. "It's been around for a long time," he said of the building, and Eagle Bluff is looking for a new location, he said. It's looking at places where buildings already exist or could be built, he said.
Eagle Bluff also owns the Pizza Huts in Shelby Mall in La Crosse, in Holmen and in Winona, and plans to continue operating those. The Rose Street Pizza Hut opened in the 1970s. "We are still looking" for a new location to replace the closed Rose Street restaurant, Baird told me Monday.
He hopes to find a new site somewhere in the middle of La Crosse. "We're trying to maximize delivery coverage" by locating in that part of the city, he said. "It's a little hard to find a location that will fit us in the middle of town," Baird said.
Steve Cahalan writes about business news and can be reached at [email protected] .
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