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Ice Company downsizes to Baked Apalach
This story is part of a limited series discussing changes in Apalachicola’s restaurant scene. To read the overview story for the series, click here.
The COVID 19 closure turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Erin and James Frost.
Plus there’s been a baby.
The two operated the Apalachicola Ice Company since Oct. 10, 2016 and were renowned for its fresh, local music, laid-back atmosphere, and pool and darts, if that was your thing. Every Thanksgiving they would host a massive buffet spread for any and all.
But with a little girl now going on 10 months old, they shut down for good last month and are now focusing entirely on Baked Apalach.
“Ultimately, the COVID closure provided a bit of a silver lining for us that we didn’t realize at the time,” said Erin Frost. “We built the Baked kitchen while the bar was closed, with the intention of maybe using it to help us reopen the bar. Eventually we decided it might be best to run it as a separate business, and that’s how Baked came to be.
“Had we not been closed for COVID, the kitchen either wouldn’t have been built or it would’ve been built as an addition to the bar,” she said. “So the silver lining is that before ever even conceiving Edie, we already put in motion a business that would come to be the best option for our changing family.
“Moving on from the bar is necessary to our family dynamic, and having Baked means we just get to move on to something that really fits our lifestyle now,” Frost said. “James is looking forward to evolving Baked, expanding hours, adding a lunch menu. And we are looking forward to free time as a family, and the ability to take vacations/go on adventures with our daughter.
“It’s amazing how demanding a bar really is,” she said. “It was just time for us to move on.”
Baked now serves only breakfast, with coffee, grab-and-go biscuits, biscuits and gravy, spinach or beef empanadas, cinnamon rolls, hashbrown casserole, and the occasional bread pudding made from leftover biscuit dough. The place opens at 6:30 a.m. until all is sold out, typically by 9 a.m.
“Not sure what’s happening next in the space, but we are continuing on with Baked in the rental next door to the bar,” Frost said.
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.