MEDIA RELEASE,   Monday, July 03, 2006

Beechworth Bakery Ballarat is due to open next week.

Award-winning Beechworth Bakery will open its new bakery in Ballarat late June 2006.

The Beechworth Bakery Ballarat is to operate out of the iconic 1850s Water board Building on the corner of Grenville & Lewis Street.
 
This is a large bakery seating 200 people and occupying approximately 400sqm in space. In addition their is plenty of car parking onsite and surrounding the building. Being located in the heart of the CBD also makes the bakery accessible to the many shoppers who frequent the area.
 
Beechworth Bakery is very excited to be opening its fifth bakery in Ballarat. We plan to celebrate becoming an integral part of the Ballarat business community with a huge opening week. This will feature give-aways and samples of tasty Beechworth Bakery treats for our new customers.
 
Beechworth Bakery has transformed the former Water Board building, which included some demolition, renovation, painting, seating, installation of new counters and shop fittings, kitchen work and signage on the interior and exterior of the building.

The Ballarat store opening comes after Beechworth Bakery opened its 2^nd bakery in Echuca back in 2001, its third bakery at Albury in December 2004 and Bendigo in April 2005.
 
Beechworth Bakery was originally a small one storey building, built in 1857, these premises in Beechworth’s Camp Street were once home to a shoe shop, a dining room and a pastry cook. When Tom O’Toole bought the building the first time, it was known as the Ideal Café and Milk Bar, and had no tables or chairs. He sold the building three years later in 1977, and moved to Augusta in Western Australia where he earned his stripes as a leading country baker.
 
In 1984 Tom returned to Beechworth and - again - purchased the bakery building, along with the draper’s building next door. Taking care to preserve the facade of the original building, major renovations were started. They took it from a staff of two with an annual turnover of $100,000 to a bakery acknowledged as the highest-earning single retail bakery in Australia. Along the way the business won national and state tourism, marketing and business awards.
 
Mr O’Toole’s success in transforming the business has prompted him to become one of Australia’s most highly sought motivational speakers.
 
Beechworth Bakery puts much time and effort into training staff on product and customer service training to high standards to ensure a smooth opening.
There will be positions available at our bakeries which include full-time and part-time.
 
Ballarat is Victoria’s second largest regional centre, with a cosmopolitan lifestyle mixed with the charm and heritage of the gold rush era. Ballarat is one of Victoria’s premier tourist destinations attracting visitors for our gold and architectural heritage, parks and gardens, art and cultural activities and as a gateway to western Victoria. Once you've explored Ballarat's past and present, there's a whole region to discover. The city lies close to the Great Ocean Road and to the heart of some of central Victoria's finest attractions: the spectacular Grampians, the wineries of the Pyrenees, and historic mining towns such as Clunes and Creswick.