Walker House owners Dan and Kathy Vaillancourt, recently made the following announcement:

“Lisa Govier, owner of L&M Bake Shoppe in Darlington will be relocating all operations to the million dollar kitchen of the Walker House in early January. In addition to offering its own baked goods (and artisan breads) the Walker House will now feature Lisa as Head Chef to prepare gourmet meals for events and receptions.”

The opening of this bakery is the latest in a series of good news to come from the Walker House.  Last month, Dan and Kathy received the Mineral Point Chamber of Commerce Bert Bohlin Historic Memorial Award.  In recent weeks they garnered some nice press about their preservation efforts and their philosophy of extreme beauty.  And, on December 7th, they hosted a well-attended gala fundraiser to showcase and raise money for arts education in the Mineral Point Schools.

High Street Beat had an e-mail exchange with the Vaillancourts to find out more about the plans for the new bakery.

HSB: Any background on how you made this happen?

Dan and Kathy: We met Lisa when the Cornish Fest committee recommended her to make the Cornish pasties for the Cornish Fest Dinner we hosted in September. When we met Lisa, she was ready to pursue her dream of adding in-house catering to her business, and we were looking for a chef for our events. We clicked immediately, especially since we have the same values and work ethic. We’ve been working together for awhile, and we’ve found Lisa to be a genius in the kitchen.

HSB: What type of baked goods will she be offering?

Dan and Kathy: We want to please the Mineral Point community, and so at first we’ll be trying a variety of baked goods and artisan breads until we see what people like. We’ll grow by trial and error.

HSB: And, it sounds like this will be happening on Saturdays only, is that correct?

Dan and Kathy: Yes, we want to start with Super Saturdays with baked goods, our famous ice cream, entertainment, and dine-in or take-out breakfast, lunch, and early dinner.

HSB: If there’s any other insight you would like to offer, that would be great.

Dan and Kathy: We have to go through a series of Federal inspections because a bakery runs like a grocery store and is governed by the Department of Agriculture. The opening date depends on the inspections.

As we grow the bakery, we’re continuing to open the Walker House for special events, which is growing fast. It seems like community people like to celebrate their special events at the Walker House. We love doing this type of service work.

Lisa is also an expert at creating cakes for special events.

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We look forward to checking out the bakery on Super Saturdays at the Walker House. (Click here to like the Walker House on Facebook and get updates on the status of the bakery.)

– Contributed by the Hays

(Full Disclosure: The photos shown above are not from Lisa Govier or L&M Bake Shoppe. Rather, they are photos we took over the weekend to supplement this post.)