O&H Danish Bakery opening flagship store on Tuesday (2024)

MOUNT PLEASANT — Starting in two days, O&H Danish Bakery will no longer have to turn away the hundreds of people who have walked up to the front doors at 5910 Washington Ave., hoping the new flagship store was open.

At 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, it will be.

The new, 1,750-square-foot store fronts the company’s new baking center, which opened in June, and headquarters offices. The stone, wood and metal façade is eye-catching with an entrance that suggests the prow of a Viking longship.

O&H Vice President Peter Olesen credits his brother-in-law, company Vice President of Marketing Matt Horton, with imparting the greatest influence on the new store’s look and thematic content.

“It was a team effort, but it took on (new) life once Matt started to own it” as a project, Olesen said.

The store’s interior was finished out with wood, stone and metal. “Those were three of the main materials the Vikings used,” Horton explained.

Much research by Horton provided the historical details that make the store much more than a place to buy baked goods, sandwiches or coffee. Because of the Olesens’ Scandinavian heritage, Horton said they even made a trip to Chicago’s Field Museum to study the Vikings exhibit there.

One result of the research is the new store’s check-out counter, built to look like a the bow of a Viking longship. It has a prow, mast and red-and-white sail tied up as though the ship is at anchor. Embedded in the countertop are several round Viking symbols such as the runic compass, of Icelandic origin, and a design inspired by a Viking coin.

And hanging above the longship/check-out counter are seven lamps representing the constellation Pleiades, or Seven Sisters.

One nugget gleaned from Horton’s research was the Olesen family crest, which is displayed on a wooden shield on the store’s rear wall. It’s Olesen’s favorite feature in the store.

“We didn’t even know we had a family crest” until Horton found it, he said. “That little bit of family history we never would have known.”

For people interested in the meanings and origins of all the history woven into the tapestry that is the new store, O&H illustrates and explains them in a free, 16-page booklet called “The Story Behind Our Bakery.”

New baking center, store

The new store is part of a $5 million reconstruction project that transformed the former Porcaro Ford dealership — originally Towne Ford — into O&H’s new baking center. It centralized all company baking operations; the company now delivers products to its other stores from there.

The new store was built by Retail Fixture, 3000 Wolff St., and designed as a collaboration between that company and O&H.

Among the store’s features are timelines, high on two of the walls. One tells the story of kringle and the other of O&H Danish Bakery as a business.

Company owner Eric Olesen said his wife Lisa’s favorite feature of the store is the exterior door handles in the shape of a large Danish Bakers Guild symbol: a pretzel topped with a crown. Historically, bakers would hang that symbol over their doorway to signify a bakery, the Olesens explain.

“Personally, I really like the suspended ceiling,” Eric Olesen said of the curved wooden structure above the product showcase area.

Horton picked two favorite features of the store: Retail Fixture’s “amazing work” on the checkout counter/longboat, and the Danish proverb scripted above the door. It says, “The road to a friend’s house is never long.”

“I think it really demonstrates what we are,” Horton said.

The new store is open 5:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Friday, 5:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday.

For more information, call 262-504-7000.