Mid-Week Mugging: From daycare to cozy cafe (5 photos)

At one time, Mary Greenwood worked as the cook for a daycare situated at 96 White Oak Drive.

Then, the daycare closed about a year ago, but no worries for Mary.

The Sault woman is a longtime cooking and catering professional, so she adapted to the change brought about by the daycare closure, did some renovations and opened her own cafe named Feeding Your Soul, in the same space where the daycare was situated.

Feeding Your Soul offers coffee and smoothies, along with lunches (soups, salads, sandwiches, wraps, tacos and more) and baking made fresh on site by Mary, including regular, gluten-free and vegan choices.

“I thought this was a great opportunity, so I jumped in and its been well-received locally by a lot of people in the White Oak Drive business area and surrounding area,” Mary told us when we dropped in to visit with a pair of SooToday mugs.  

“Right now, about 70 per cent of it is take out. I’m getting some police officers coming in for lunch, which is great. Word is getting out by word of mouth and social media.” 

Feeding Your Soul (no religious/spiritual connotation intended, Mary said) opened recently, on Sept. 13, with Mary still busy getting an official menu printed up and ready for distribution.

Mary still does baking for Cafe Natura and City Meat Market, and dabbles in maple syrup.

“I keep myself busy enough. It’s fun.”

“My husband Deane is my grocery getter for the cafe,” Mary chuckled.

Mary and the building’s owner have plans to open an internet cafe adjacent to the cozy Feeding Your Soul space (chairs are on order).

The former daycare building in which Feeding Your Soul is located is a story in itself, also serving as home to the Two-Brain Business Workshop (a business which mentors gym owners on making their businesses more profitable), Fuel Up Nutrition, and an engineering firm, with a conference room available for up to 30 people.

There is still more office space available, Mary said.

There is a possibility an outdoor space at the building, once used as a daycare play area, will be used as a patio space for the cafe when pleasant spring and summer weather returns. 

“I enjoy doing this because it’s fun. Everybody comes in here because they’re hungry, I’m meeting lots of new people and the public is fun to work with, and interesting,” Mary said.

“I really like to cook and I like to try cooking new things. It’s great.”