Mount Pleasant's third oldest business closes
Former Robaire's employee hopes to re-establish iconic bakery
Jessica Wiles (left) and Brooke Malley take a customer's Paczki order for Fat Tuesday at Robaire's Bakery on Feb. 25, 2020.
After serving Mount Pleasant for 61 years, Robaire’s Bakery has decided to shut down. A GoFundMe has been created by a former employee to reopen it.
The previous owner of Robaire's, Dina Desormes, passed away in April 2022. Desormes’ son Gerard had made the ultimate decision to close the bakery after the staff kept it open for the summer.
“After the passing of our beloved Dina, things were just not the same,” a post from the Robaire Bakery Facebook page said.
According to Desormes' obituary, Desormes was born in France in 1939 during WWII. She was a child when the Nazis occupied her hometown and her family had been hiding two American pilots who had been shot down over their farm. The war provided Desormes with “…resilience … perseverance and the sense of doing right.”
Desormes eventually met her husband, Robaire Desormes, with whom she emigrated to America. In 1944, Dina Desormes became a U.S. citizen and settled in Mount Pleasant, opening Robaire’s Bakery in 1961 — it would become the city's third-oldest business.
After Robaire’s passing in 1993, Desormes continued his baking traditions — waking up at 3:30 a.m., seven days a week to prepare the sweets and pastries.
As of Sept. 8, one of Robaire's employees, Amanda Adkins, had created a GoFundMe to reopen the bakery.
Adkins had been working for Robaire's for 10 years until the doors of the bakery came to a close. During her time working there, Adkins had expressed that it has been her "dream and passion" to take over the bakery for Desormes, whom she considered her own grandmother.
She said she would have taken over sooner; however, doubt took over.
"[W]ith the passing of miss Dina, all of it is happening rather quickly where I have to act fast and ask for help," Adkins wrote on her GoFundMe page.
Adkins mentioned that she wants to own the bakery in order to prevent businesses unfamiliar with the background and quality of Robaire's baked goods.
"The thing is I don't [want to] change it," Adkins said. "I want to make sure WE perserve it, get it back to the bakery I walked into 10 years ago."
Although the business officially closed Sept. 4, cake orders are still being accepted via email. Orders can be sent to robairesbakery123@outlook.com.
