Grounded and Baked serving up baked goods and coffee sweetened with family memories and legacy

Brad Mitchell has countless fond memories of time spent with his grandmother, Norma Ann “Nanny” Vinson, especially her baking lessons using her recipes — memories he wants to share with others while helping them make memories of their own.

His grandmother just wanted to make sure that her recipes didn’t fall by the wayside when she got older and wasn’t able to bake them any more; so she took the time to teach Mitchell how to make her cakes and do the things she does.

“As she would say, I just took it from there,” Mitchell said.

Taking it from there led to the creation of Grounded and Baked bakery and coffee with a ribbon-cutting held Friday afternoon for its new Mount Olive location, housed in the old Henderson-Crumpler Clinic, 229 N. Center St.

The company is owned by Mitchell of LaGrange and Jennifer Bland of Kinston.

“My goal and mission in the very beginning was I wanted people to have the nostalgia of eating what grandmas bake for you,” Mitchell said. “I just wanted them to know what it was like when they used to sit at the dinner table and had grandma cook for you and what a joy it was just to experience that memory.

“So, our food is about memories, and what we bring to the table is just helping you remember how much your family means to you because our families mean a lot to us. Every Sunday my grandmother did a full spread. We had all of the meats and vegetables, and we always had one of her cakes. Then for all the grandchildren’s birthdays, we got to pick our favorite cake, and she would bake it for us. So that was a powerful memory.”

He added, “Then for Christmas, she has this little back room in her house — a little cold room — that she shuts off and it stays cold. At Christmas she would take all of her treats and she would put them in the back. She would fill it up waiting for Christmas to come then everybody would come to her house and enjoy these treats. Well, I got to go into the cold room and sample things. She would let me come in and try stuff.”

The bakery’s base offerings are things that she would have in that back room, said Mitchell.

“Those are valuable memories for me that I want to share with other people,” he added. “That was my purpose in wanting to make this stuff, and she (Bland) joined with doughnuts later. We didn’t do doughnuts.”

Bland, who now lives in Kinston, said on Saturday mornings her family would go to a doughnut shop in South Hill, Virginia.

“I don’t know what the pull was for me to want to ever make doughnuts or have my own doughnut shop, coffee shop,” she said. “I don’t know. I mean it was just one of those things that I have always wanted to do.”

Bland called a friend because she wanted specific doughnuts and not a random type of doughnut — not just one from any doughnut shop.

“I wanted these doughnuts that I grew up on,” she said. “My friends shared his recipe with me, and so from Virginia to eastern North Carolina, I have brought those doughnuts.”

For Friday, she fried 461 doughnuts for the bakery’s two locations — all were gone before 10:30 a.m. They brought in more from the other two locations because Mount Olive kept selling out.

Mitchell said his grandmother is “over the moon” that his locations use her recipes.

“She said, ‘You took that way further than I thought you would,’” he said.

“I looked at her and said, ‘This is all your fault,’” Bland joked. “She said, ‘I know.’”

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“When I first heard Brad and Jennifer were coming to town, I was like oh, my gosh. This is amazing,” Mount Olive Area Chamber of Commerce President Julie Beck said prior to the ribbon cutting. “First of all, I am excited about them coming to Mount Olive, even more so that they are in downtown Mount Olive. But the bad part is it is only two blocks from my office.

“It has been such an honor to work with them as they have been getting settled, getting organized in here. I asked Jennifer and Brad just a few minutes ago — I said how many times have you said to yourself oh, my gosh why did we add a third location? Jennifer quickly said, ‘Quit reading my mind, girl.’”

The Mount Olive community has been very supportive of everything happening here, Beck said.

“I know they have been crazy busy this week and hope that this will continue on,” she added. “We are so excited to have you in Mount Olive. We are excited to have you as a Mount Olive Chamber member.

“We are here to support you. We appreciate all of the people coming out today and showing their great support. We hope you will continue to come, eat and drink and have a great time here. It is a great venue. It’s a beautiful venue. I love how it is set up. I love the Christian focus.”

Mitchell and Bland described their first week in Mount Olive as “outstanding.”

“I would have never dreamed,” she said.

Mitchell added that the community had really shown up and supported them.

“It has just been phenomenal,” he added.

Both agreed that they could not have asked for a better reception.

Mitchell said other items may be added to the Mount Olive location menu and that they are exploring some options.

“But we want to stay in our lane because what we do, we do really, really well,” he said. “But we may expand some of our menu.”

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Mitchell said they first started talking about a Mount Olive location last August. He turned to Danny Strickland of Strickland & Mitchell Family Properties of Mount Olive for help.

Mitchell and Strickland have been friends since kindergarten.

Strickland and his wife, Jane, have been supporters and advocates of Grounded and Baked since the beginning, Mitchell said.

“We knew we wanted to expand,” he said. “Jennifer and I talked about it, and I called Danny. I said, ‘I am really looking to expand,’ and he said, ‘Well, I am looking to help you.’”

Then he and Strickland started the search for a building.

Mitchell added that he, Bland and the Stricklands put everything together.

“So, it was really friendship with Danny and Jane that helped us come here,” Mitchell said.

Both Mitchell and Bland said they love the history behind the building that originally housed the Henderson-Crumpler Clinic named for the Dr. C.C. Henderson and Dr. Warren H. Crumpler Sr., who opened it in 1949. Before closing in 1976, more than 8,000 babies were delivered there.

“So many people have come in and said, ‘I was born here,’ which is really fun.” Mitchell said. “They were like, ‘our first meal was here.’ And now you can have another one.”

Bland and Jane Strickland kind of put together what they wanted the building to look like, and all four worked together to put it together, he added.

It will be more than just a place for food and coffee, said Mitchell and Bland.

“We would love for people to come, have meetings here,” Bland said. “We want you to come and enjoy the space. We’ve got lots of little places to plug in with computers to study — so students can come and sit.”

“We want to make it a home for people that they can just come, feel comfortable and welcome and loved and just spend some time,” Mitchell added.

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Before opening the first location, Mitchell was baking out of his LaGrange home just to share his grandmother’s recipes.

“And it kind of took off,” he said. “I was like on paper it doesn’t make sense, but I will just do little openings and see what happens — a little commercial kitchen.

“June two years ago, I announced on Facebook I was going to open Grounded and Baked in LaGrange just to see what happens. We opened in August of 2023 and it took off — way more than I could have ever imagined.”

Mitchell and Bland have been running buddies for more than 15 years. During the runs he would talk about the bakery, but did not know her dream was to make doughnuts since that was not her profession, just like baking wasn’t his.

Originally from Virginia, Bland was a medical speech pathologist and Mitchell worked at a funeral home and served as a minister.

Mitchell continues to do a little bit of preaching on Sundays and works at the funeral home a little bit, Bland said.

“I have resigned from being a speech pathologist full time in November of 2024 to focus on this,” she said.

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The company’s other locations are 106 W. Railroad St., LaGrange, where the business started in 2023, and 313 N. Spence Ave., Goldsboro where it is partnered with beanSweet Coffee Shop.

“Brad started in August, and then I joined in January to bring the doughnuts,” Bland said. “Mount Olive, you have supported the doughnuts — we cannot keep them here.

“I tried very hard. I tried very hard this morning to make enough so everybody could get one, and we ran out so we stole from the other two places.”

Along with doughnuts, the bakery includes all of Mitchell’s grandmother’s baked goods: cakes, cupcakes, cookies, cheese biscuits, blueberry biscuits, pecan pie bars, lemon bars, chew-bread and honey-bun cake.

“All of the favorites,” Bland said. “And we have tons of coffee. All the coffees — if you can’t find a coffee you like, something is wrong. We’ve got it all.”

Also, there is a lot of seating, Beck said, adding that she can see it as a meeting place for people to come and gather.”

That is the hope, Bland said.

“I have already loved seeing the regulars,” she continued. “We have only been here a week, but I love seeing the same people coming back. That’s what it is all about. We want to hear your story. We want to meet you and greet you.

“That is what Brad and I are really passionate about — being able to make you feel welcomed at all of the locations that we are in.”

The Mount Olive location is open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. It is closed on Sunday and Monday.

Catering and mobile services are available, too.

For more information, visit groundedandbaked.com.