HASTINGS, Minn. — Get in while you can.
Since announcing its final day of business will be Nov. 27, there has been a steady line of customers stretching from the counters to the doors at Emily's Bakery & Deli.
"It's just sad to see something that you're just so used to having around be gone," one woman said while visiting the shop Friday.
As customers stock up on their favorites, co-owner Norine Bishop is in the back room, bundling bags of buns going out for delivery.
"It has been chaotic to say the least," Bishop said.
Bishop says even before the announcement, business was good. So why shut down?
"We've been trying to find employees," Bishop said. "We're down probably right now close to 10 people from what our normal business is, and business has not slowed down, so we're just working that much short."
She says bakers are hard to find.
"The baker shortage, I think, has a lot to do just with the fact that that's a trade that is not being taught many places anymore," she said. "Dunwoody Institute used to have a program and they don't have one anymore. That's where we'd gotten quite a few of our bakers from. You can certainly learn how to bake on the job, but it takes a long time, especially for commercial baking. People think it's similar to home baking. It's not at all."
The bakery has been in Hastings for more than 100 years and it's been in the family for around 75 years. Bishop's great uncle was first in the family to own the business, followed by her grandparents, uncle and parents. Bishop and her brother took over in 1988. Emily is their grandmother.
"We're just overwhelmed with the outpouring of support and love that people have been sharing with us," Bishop said. "It just brings me to tears."
Since the announcement, some people have expressed interest in buying the building, but whether that happens and whether it would still be a bakery, is to be determined.
Meanwhile, Bishop says she isn't going to retire but rather she wants to get a so-called normal job, considering her time at the bakery has meant working a lot of overnights and weekends.