Three and a half months ago, Hartman’s Bakery in Manitowoc caught fire.
It was determined that the blaze originated in the oven, which had been baking bread and pastries since the 1950s.
We reached out to Austin Rehrauer, who owns the iconic bakery with his wife Luisa to see when they think they will be back up and running.
“We are still waiting to get a schedule of when things will be done in terms of this contractor doing this and this one doing this, but my best guess would be one to two months,” he revealed. “We are looking at probably after the holidays.”
Austin showed us the kitchen area, which has been completely gutted in preparation for all new equipment (as you can see in the picture above).
“The new equipment we had to replace has been ordered. It’s all taken care of,” he said. “So right now we are at the point where we are getting ready to get the inside started and finished. Hopefully that moves along pretty quickly.”
For many people, the complete shutdown of a business would be a sign to hang it up.
Not for the Rehrauers.
Austin said the support the community has given them has been the driving force behind getting reopened.
“Their support with just kind words or donations and that kind of stuff has been incredible,” he said. “It really gets us excited to open back up and start serving them again.”
All of the other locations closed up following the fire as well because all of the baking for every store is done at the Manitowoc location.
That being said, the Plymouth store did move to a new building in the downtown area and began serving coffee and ice cream.
