Get Your Fill

This-long vacant building in Cameron, once a filling station, could be filling you up in a new way thanks to Heidi Clarke, aka PastryMom. Heidi bought the building and is in the process of restoring it to use as her bakery. As you can see, the building itself is in rough shape, so the process won’t be easy. “It’s gonna be slow-going. We want to be really intentional about how we do this and do it right the first time so it stays around another 100 years,” says Heidi. 

The building was built around 1940 and used as Hardy Gulf station before becoming Mr. Henry Gilchrist’s Service Station. 

• Storytime: Although Heidi isn’t from the area, Mr. Henry unknowingly had a huge impact on her family. Heidi’s father-in-law, John Atlas Phillips III, grew up in Cameron. As a young man, he asked Mr. Henry for a job but Mr. Henry flat out told him no. “You need to go to college,” he said. Not only did John  end up going to college, he became the director of the Division of Medical Genetics and Genomic Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, with a focus on undiagnosed diseases. 

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much public knowledge about the building’s history. Heidi would love to find more info and photos, so if you know something, hit reply and pass it on. 

Heidi is currently working with an architect to figure out first steps, like reinforcing the foundation. The idea is to call the bakery “PastryMom at Mr. Henry’s” as a way to pay homage to Mr. Henry and her father-in-law. Because of the building’s limited space, she wants the kitchen to be the main focus so she can produce more of everything. Customers will take their pic from a grab-and-go counter.

Although there is no set timeline, Heidi hopes to open sometime next year. She even plans to host a grand opening bakery rave. In the meantime, you’ll still find PastryMom at farmers markets and available for custom orders via email.