Despite having to close her business after it was damaged by a fire yesterday, the owner of Pumpernickel Bakery, Patricia Campbell, is confident that she will reopen her doors soon.
Campbell has been operating her business at the corner of Coffee and Carib Streets for the past 17 years.
She recalled, “I’m not sure exactly what caused everything. I got a call at 3 o’clock this morning from the police asking me if anybody had called me about a fire at my bakery. I said no. They said they put it out already.”
She also asked the officer whether it was inside or outside, or whether the door had been broken, but got no answers.
She said, “I said is it possible a vagrant may have started a fire because with the homeless problem we have in San Fernando, we get a lot of homeless outside. They did not answer.”
When she saw the damage to her bakery she said, she cried.
The front glass doors were shattered, the $15,000 air conditioning unit will have to be replaced and electrical work and painting will have to be done.
She did not want to speculate on whether the fire was deliberately set but there were no electrical fittings in the damaged area.
Apart from the occasional disagreements with non-customers parking in front of her business or issues with street dwellers, Campbell said, she received no threats from anyone. She said the bakery section was not affected so her wholesale sales would not be affected.
While her business survived the COVID-19 pandemic, she said, it never fully recovered.
“It hits you kind of hard because I’ve spent so long building it and I thought I did a nice product. But, no this kind of thing, I feel like a phoenix rising from the ashes, almost literally. It just makes me more determined and I am planning to come back and maybe be better,” she said.
She has ten employees.
Describing her business as a “labour of love,” she said her goal was not only to be successful but to show and express care to her customers.
“All our bread is touched by hands and made with love,” she boasted. If the fire were deliberate, she is hoping that they do not return to finish the job.
She said the contents, not the building, are insured.
Officers of the Mon Repos Fire Station and San Fernando Police Station are investigating.