Building the Valley: Simply Sisters Bakery making Vandergrift a little sweeter

When they were growing up, sisters Karen Johnston and Paula Cunningham would bake cookies in their Easy Bake Oven.

In November, after getting family members hooked on their cookie trays, they bought a shoebox space in Vandergrift and went after their dream.

Simply Sisters Bakery opened on April 3. Each morning, the sisters stuff the former beauty salon with as many cookies, lady locks, doughnuts, cinnamon rolls and containers of wedding soup as space allows.

“The cinnamon rolls fly off the shelf,” said Johnston, 51.

In fact, everything flies off the shelves. The sisters sell out daily to about 100 customers.

They’re already thinking about buying the rest of the building on Emerson Street to meet the demand.

“People in this town are really serious about their sweets,” said Cunningham, 59.

Simply Sisters is the town’s first bakery in years, save for catering services.

Tim Gourley of Vandergrift stopped three times in the first two weeks the bakery was open.

“It’s super convenient,” Gourley said, ready to take home a dozen doughnuts and a dozen cookies. “Definitely something that we needed.”

Initially, the sisters planned to bake using only alternative sweetener Splenda. After working for years as nursing assistants at Platinum Ridge Center for Nursing and Rehab in Brackenridge, they wanted to cater to customers with diabetes.

They decided to incorporate sugar into some of their products, but the brownies, apricot thumbprints and sugar cookies, to name a few, are made with Splenda.

Switching from nursing to baking has involved a steep schedule adjustment. The sisters rise at 12:30 a.m. and drive from New Kensington to be at the bakery by 2 a.m.

With a little help from five-hour Energy shots, they have no plans of slowing down. The sisters soon may start catering to the lunch crowd with pizza and hoagies.

They’re not doing it all without help.

Darby Nichols, Johnston’s mother-in-law, helps out in the kitchen.

Friend Cindy Walker is stationed at the cash register. She lives one street over on Lowell Street.

Walker already has spotted some regulars.

“There’s some people that, everyday we’re open, they’re in here getting something,” Walker said.

She added that one person keeps calling and buying all the bread.

Despite the rapid pace of business, the sisters find time to bask in the pride of opening their own bakery.

“We still look at each other when we pull up in the morning, like, ‘Is this ours?’ ” Johnston said.

And when the day is done, their bond is as strong as ever.

“If we’re not here, we’re always together,” Johnston said.

Simply Sisters, located at 301 Emerson St., is open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays.