Red Hen Baking has announced that it will move its production bakery and café half a mile from its Camp Meade home of 17 years to a larger space in Middlesex, just off Route 2. Red Hen co-owner Randy George confirmed that work has started on the 15,000-square-foot building at 31 Welch Park Drive and the bakery is targeting a spring move.
The building previously housed Farmers to You, a food distribution business now operating on the Creative Campus at Goddard in Plainfield. George said the new location will nearly double the bakery’s footprint. It will permit Red Hen to expand its product line with a new oven for pan-baked loaves, increase café seating from about 35 to 45 and provide better access for delivery trucks. The bakery will continue to operate a seasonal creemee window with house-baked cones.
George, 56, said he and his wife and co-owner, Eliza Cain, 57, are thinking ahead. While they have no immediate plans to sell their business, “It ultimately has to do with Eliza and I being in our late fifties, and we want this thing to go beyond us,” George said. “This is a long-term, secure site with the option to purchase.”
In advance of the move, Woodbelly Pizza co-owner Eric Andersen said the wood-fired pizza business is talking with Russ Bennett of Camp Meade about taking over part of the current Red Hen Baking space. In the meantime, Thursday through Sunday evenings from now through early November, Woodbelly is serving pizza, subs, wings and salads using Camp Meade’s outdoor oven. Seating is available under a covered pavilion.
Andersen, 45, said Woodbelly Pizza closed its 4-year-old Montpelier pizzeria on Barre Street in mid-July due to a significant decline in business, which he attributed to downtown construction, fewer tourists and the generally soft economic climate. The team has remained busy with catering and event gigs using its two mobile ovens.
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2 2025.
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