Entrepreneur gives rise to Sweet Revolution Baking Co. in Riverside
Katie Riehm says the name of her new Riverside area business, Sweet Revolution Baking Co., is a spin on her plan to take the craft to the next step of producing sweet treats with all-natural, allergy-free ingredients.
That means doughnuts, cupcakes, cookie sandwiches, muffins and breakfast items free of egg, dairy, soy and peanut ingredients. Many of the products also will be gluten-free.
Riehm calls her venture, which she will open at 1243 King St., “an alternative bakery.”
“It’s a whole new era of baked goods,” said Riehm, a 27-year-old Jacksonville native.
JBL Corp. Inc. is building out the bakery at a construction cost of $65,240, although the investment is more than that. Riehm declines to say how much she is putting into the business, but she said it’s from her savings.
“I never owned a business. It really was something I wanted to do,” she said.
Riehm is a graduate of The Bolles School and attended Jacksonville University and the University of North Florida, starting as a studio art major and then majoring in art history at UNF, before she moved to New York to train at the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City and intern at a Brooklyn restaurant.
Her cousins run the Grassroots Natural Market at 2007 Park St. in Riverside and she said she will order her ingredients from there.
Riehm, who married musician Eric Riehm in October, wants to open her bakery this coming October.
Business does run in the family. Her father is Scott Petersen, president of Jacksonville Specialty Advertising Inc.
Sweet Revolution will take about 950 square feet of space next to Whiteway Delicatessen, whose owners are her landlord. She’s not sure what was in the space before.
“Everything has been relatively smooth thus far,” she said.
Riehm’s art focus also will come into play as she decorates and designs the space to evoke the mood of a soda shop, with a new twist. In other words, don’t look for a pink splash. “I want it to have a certain feel to it,” she said.
She also intends to sell Brooklyn egg cream sodas (which are made without eggs or cream), Italian sodas and floats, made with homemade ice “cream.”
She also plans to offer doughnut sundaes.
Riehm expects to make pies and cakes for special orders and for holidays.
“I was always painting. I was always baking,” she said of growing up. Her specialty as a child was the Coca-Cola Cake.
Riehm said baking was calming and kept her focused. If she has a stressful day, “I bake it out.”
Downtown defined
For the record: The boundaries of Downtown as defined by the City of Jacksonville are Interstate 95 to the south and west, State Street to the north and the St. Johns River to the east.
Meanwhile, the 90-block Downtown Jacksonville Improvement District consists of about 500 properties and is bordered by Prudential Drive to the south, Broad Street to the west, Church Street to the north and Market Street to the east.
That information comes courtesy of General Manager Donald Harris at the Wyndham Jacksonville Riverwalk Hotel who is advocating on behalf of Downtown Vision Inc., whose budget comes before the City Council Finance Committee later this month.
Gateway seeing improvements
Owners of Gateway Town Center are sprucing up the Northside shopping complex. The City approved building permits for roof repairs at 5238, 5258, 5290, 5412 and 5444 Norwood Ave. at a job cost of $78,375. Metro Property Services Inc. is the contractor.
Connolly sells condo
Property records show that former Jacksonville Jaguars Senior Vice President of Business Development Tim Connolly and his wife, Nyun Ok, sold their Epping Forest condominium to Jeffrey and Rachelle Gottlieb for $562,500.
The Connollys bought the property in December 2005 for $625,000.
Connolly joined the Green Bay Packers in May 2010 as vice president of sales and marketing and the couple lives in Green Bay.
Sebelius to make ‘major’ announcement
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is scheduled to visit Jacksonville on Wednesday to make a “major national announcement” related to the health care law, the Affordable Care Act. Her office said she is scheduled to visit the CVS/pharmacy and MinuteClinic at 4475 San Juan Ave. and have her blood pressure checked, which her office said is one of the new preventive services available to Medicare beneficiaries at no additional cost under the health care law. The event is scheduled for 11:30 a.m.
New GM named at First Coast News
Gannett’s Broadcasting Division named Eric Land president and general manager at WTLV/WJXX in Jacksonville. He’s the former chief operating officer of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and most recently was president and CEO of Walkabout Air Aviation in Tampa. A news release says Land’s experience includes serving as president and general manager of WFLA in Tampa; WIAT in Birmingham, Ala.; and WGRZ in Buffalo, N.Y. He takes over WJXX TV-25 and WTLV TV-12 from Dodie Cantrell-Bickley, who retired at the end of June.
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