By Mary Sprague
Elm Staff Writer
Just Right Treats, Chestertown’s latest bakery, has recently opened its doors. It offers a wide selection of baked goods and hand-dipped ice cream in a spacious and cozy sitting area featuring comfortable couches and an upright piano. The bakery is located at 337 High St., next to JR’s Past Time Pub.
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“It was JR’s baby, another expansion on his enterprise,” barista Kirby Powell said. “It was mostly an ice cream and treat shop, and then we came along and were like, ‘Let’s do all of the other things, too.'”
Pastry chef Melissa McGlynn said that, after Stam’s closed, JR wanted to “pick up that torch and keep running with it.”
She had heard that he was going to be turning the space into a bakery.
“[JR] told us the plan and he walked us through it, and we said, ‘Well, who’s running it?’ And he said, ‘Well, I guess I am.’ I said, ‘JR, I’m a pastry chef, and he’s a barista.’ It really fell into place really quickly. Within a week there was a bakery.”
Although there are two other bakeries in Chestertown, Just Right Treats hopes to fill a formerly unexplored niche.
“It’s a small town,” McGlynn said, “and we all want to support each other and make sure we aren’t stepping on each other’s toes.”
“The beauty of this community is how well we all work together,” Powell said.
McGlynn said employees split tasks and each have their own focus from croissants to gluten-free products.
In addition to traditional or vegetarian quiches and hand-dipped Hershey’s ice cream, the bakery offers multiple pastry options, the majority of which are made in-house.
“We have two different types of muffins, two different types of scones — one sweet and one savory. We have three different types of cookies and New York bagels [imported] from Brooklyn,” McGlynn said. “We always have cupcakes. Today we actually have two different kinds — carrot cake with cinnamon-cream-cheese icing and devil’s food cake with homemade, salted caramel buttercream.”
“We also do cupcakes, cakes, and pies to order,” Powell said.
“I would recommend either carrot cake cupcake or the salted caramel devil’s food cake cupcake,” McGlynn said. “And our chocolate chip cookies are pretty good.”
“I really like the apple pie coffee cake streusel muffin. It made my day on more than one occasion,” Powell said.
Just Right Treats offers many opportunities for student employment, especially because of its partnership with the neighboring JR’s Pub and the Lemon Leaf.
“We’ll cross bridges,” Powell said, “if you want to wait tables, or be a line cook and also do this, there’s opportunities in all of the fields here. You can definitely expand your horizons in a lot of ways in just this building.”
“We will offer Washington College 10 percent student discounts, as well as senior citizen discounts.… The WC students are happy about this,” McGlynn said.
The discount starts the week of April 10 and will cover everything besides pies and cakes to order.
“What we really want is for this space, down here, to be kind of like the living room of Chestertown,” McGlynn said, referring to the spacious downstairs sitting area. “Because we’ve got great big couches and tables, and newspapers everyday.… It’s a great place for WC kids to come and do your homework, or meet and talk about different things.… We really would love to have the College come and just make this their home away from home.”
The bakery, fully equipped with Wi-Fi, is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. They are available through contact on their Facebook page @JustRightTreats or 443-282-0055.