It all began in 2018 when Megan Jacobsen and her two sisters, Devan Jacobsen and Shannon Edwards, opened the Midway Bakery as a retirement gig for their mom, Debbie, who had just moved from their childhood home in Idaho to Utah.
“We were like, ‘Oh, this would be a perfect opportunity for her to do something,’” Megan said. “She had just come off of a 20-year career of insurance, but we knew, our mom’s an amazing baker.”
Of course, it was a lot more work than they ever anticipated.
“I think we imagined the whole Hallmark scene of, you get two customers a day, and you make them a fresh scone,” Shannon said with a laugh. “And then 2020 hit, and honestly, we only got busier.”
With Debbie’s loving personality and homestyle recipes, the shop quickly gained success, and the four began working there full-time.
“Actually none of us thought that we would keep working with my mom,” Shannon said. “Then we were like, ‘Oh, wait, we’re doing this. Oh, wait, it’s really busy. Oh, it’s gotten really crazy.’ And so we’ve kind of just moved forward with the business, all of us together.”
In 2021, they decided they wanted to move to a different location in Midway and began the long process of finding the right space. In the meantime, they ran the bakery out of a food truck, just to remind customers they weren’t gone for good.
“Midway is really small, and a lot of the property is very much owned. It’s not like Park City or other places where you can just go lease a place. It’s a lot more difficult to move around in, and especially a situation like ours where you need a full running kitchen that’s up to code in every way,” Shannon said.
It took three years for them to find a space they could purchase and renovate, but the unexpected death of their mom brought their plans to a halt.
“During that, our mom, who’s like the heart of our whole bakery, she got cancer and passed away,” Shannon said.
While grieving their mom, the sisters also had a decision to make.
“Is this something we still want to do, even though our mom passed away? We thought really long and hard about it, and we prayed about it,” Shannon said. “Ultimately, we felt like we needed to carry on our mom’s legacy here.”
They signed for the building, finished the necessary renovations, and opened right before Thanksgiving. After three years of having doors closed, the community showed up in a huge way — forming the “craziest crowd” the sisters had ever seen.
“A lot of the people who are our regulars, who grew to know our mom through the years, they really showed up those first few weeks and let us know that they were like, behind us and helping us,” Shannon said. “It was really cool for us to be able to feel that, and especially going through our first holiday season without our mom, too.”
Their father, Edward Small, is another huge reason the sisters decided to keep the bakery going.
“I think it was the day our loan funded. I sent my dad a text, ‘Dad, are you sure? Is everything going to be OK?’ And he wrote me back, and said, ‘I have full faith in my daughters,’” Megan said. “I just kept saying that to myself over and over, because this has been the longest road, the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
Small is the bakery’s jack-of-all-trades. He’s there to help with anything his girls need, like fixing a leak and hauling flour up to the kitchen.
“We were the best at everything, because she used to tell us that,” Shannon said. “To have our dad’s support behind us has meant the world.”
Even though Debbie is gone, she’s still very much a part of Midway Bakery, the sisters said, from the recipes to the communal spirit.
“I feel like the reason we’re here is really because of our story, and it’s not so much like we have a good product, even though I think that helps, but I think our story is the reason that we exist,” said Megan.
When Debbie was a kid, she decided to learn how to bake one Christmas. Her family pitched in for the ingredients for fruit cake, an expensive dessert at the time. As a mother, Debbie would bake for the family, and anyone else who happened to be at the house.
“Our friends were always over, like, ‘What did Debbie make today?’” Shannon said.
When Debbie moved to Utah, learning to bake sourdough bread at high altitude was a challenge. But again, the community supported her with tips and resources. Even during the stressful parts of running a business, Debbie’s happy place was always in the kitchen baking.
“Mom would just yell, ‘I just want to make bread!’” Megan said. A sign with the quote now hangs in the bakery.
Debbie’s recipes are the heart of the country-style bakery, like their beloved sweet rolls made in four different flavors. Those recipes are certainly not going away.
“The cool thing is, our sister, Devan, she learned everything from my mom,” Shannon said. “She’s basically a replica of my mom, like a spitting image, and she has that special touch.”
But the real legacy of Debbie is her attitude toward others.
“I feel like the reason we’re successful is because our mom loved everyone,” said Shannon. “The whole point in us opening our bakery again was just basically to run this thing in my mom’s honor, and treat people with the respect that she treated people.”
Everyone is treated like family, and even their new location is like going home, bright and warm, paired with the smell of fresh baked bread.
Midway Bakery also sells mixed berry, maple pecan and cinnamon sweet rolls year round, with one seasonal rotating flavor. They also have assorted loaves of bread, soft baguettes, cookies, scones, brownies, cupcakes, you name it. A lunch menu also includes sandwiches, soups and other light options. It’s located open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday at 112 S. Center Street.
“We hear so much like, ‘Oh my gosh, this tastes like my grandma’s’ or ‘This tastes like my aunt’s.’ There was one lady years ago, and she sat me down and she said, ‘My mom passed away of cancer 10 years ago, and this cinnamon roll tastes like her cinnamon roll.’ And now it hits different,” Megan said. “I think it’s so cool that we’re able to give that back to our community.”