Michelle Simms was born in 1957, five months before her dad, Raymond LeBlanc, moved his Quality Bake Shop into the shiny, modern Essex Junction Shopping Center to become one of the mall’s first storefronts.
Simms began working at the family business when she was 9. She was supposed to make coffee, she recalled, but “I didn’t like that job very much, so I started waiting on customers.” She turns 68 this month, a couple of years behind the bakery, which celebrated its 70th birthday in July.
These days, both the strip mall and Quality Bake Shop are as well worn as the bakery’s age-mottled floor tiles but, along with Simms, they’re all still there. According to local historian Bob Blanchard, from the mid-1950s to the early ’60s, five large shopping centers opened in Chittenden County. Of all the original tenants, he said, Quality Bake Shop is the only one remaining.
Most mornings, customers will find the friendly, white-haired Simms behind the counter, flipping eggs and crisp home fries from the flattop onto paper plates, a memento from the pandemic that stuck due to a lack of dishwasher — mechanical or human.
The breakfast is fine, but it’s the bakery’s emphatically unfancy fresh doughnuts and old-school vibe that make Quality Bake Shop worth a visit. If you sit on one of the turquoise vinyl-topped diner stools and strike up a conversation with Simms, she’ll likely recommend her favorite plain cake doughnut ($1.85). Standout specimens of this no-nonsense style, they boast a craggy golden crust that softly crunches to reveal a plush, not-too-sweet crumb.
The cake doughnuts are among two dozen kinds of scratch-made doughnuts fried fresh six mornings a week by Michelle’s ex-husband, Quality Bake Shop owner Doug Simms, and their son, bakery manager Doug Jr. (When somebody calls and asks for Doug, Michelle said, “We ask, ‘Which one do you want: big or little?’”)
Among Quality Bake Shop’s fluffy, yeast-raised doughnuts, I vouch for the simple glazed and (very mapley) maple-glazed. The tender, sugar-crunchy twisted cruller is also really good, especially dipped in coffee.
Father and son, 66 and 41, respectively, start working around 2:30 or 3 a.m. to put out about at least 60 dozen doughnuts a day. They also use LeBlanc’s original recipes to make several varieties of fresh-baked bread ($3.49-3.99), frosted and fruit-filled cookies ($1.50-2.25), and pies, such as Canadian-style meat pies ($12.99). Other New England classics include raisin-and-walnut-studded hermit bars (85 cents), “like something your grandmother would have made you,” Michelle said.
The Simms like what they do, but Michelle minced no words: The early hours and physical strain on the body make for “a pretty shitty life, and that’s how come nobody’s going into the trade.”
Big and little Doug have been the only bakers since longtime employee David Peters died in May 2024. Peters had worked for the family for almost 60 years, starting as a teen. He is hugely missed, Michelle said.
Finding reliable employees has become increasingly tough, she said. Her son, in fact, asked her to come back to work in 2020.
Other than pitching in on holidays, Michelle had taken an almost two-decade break from the bakery after owning it for 21 years. She sold it amicably to Doug Sr. around the time of their divorce in 2002 to focus on another business she co-owned, the Spanked Puppy Restaurant & Pub in Colchester. When she sold the pub in 2018, she thought she’d retire.
“I hated retirement,” Michelle said. “I lasted four months.”
The job also saves her money on a gym membership, she said. Sure, she eats a few cake doughnuts here and there, but “I get my five miles in behind the counter.”
Quality Bake Shop, 91 Pearl St., Essex Junction, 878-3798. Find Quality Bake Shop on Facebook. Note: Cash or check only.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Doughnut Dynasty | For 70 years, family-run Quality Bake Shop in Essex Junction has fried them fresh”
This article appears in Sep 17-23 2025.
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