SOUTH PORTLAND — The owner of Portland’s Two Fat Cats bakery plans to open a second location on Broadway. 

Stacy Begin, who purchased the India Street bakery in 2012 after her baking hobby threatened to take over her South Portland home, said she hopes to open the new shop in April.

She said both locations will offer the same menu of pies, cakes, cookies and other baked goods.

The bakery will lease space at 740 Broadway, the former Fernleaf bakery location, just blocks from where Begin lives. She said she was originally seeking extra space for production and storage for the Portland shop, but it made sense to incorporate a retail space, selling baked goods and coffee.

“We couldn’t turn it down. The bakery is turnkey, the equipment is already there, and we have a lot of customers on that side of the bridge. We want it to feel like a warm, welcoming place,” Begin said, adding she loves the South Portland community and hopes the bakery will become part of the fabric of the neighborhood. 

She said the founders of Two Fat Cats – Dana Street, Alison Pray, Matt James and Kristen DuShane – saw an opportunity in Portland to focus on traditional American, scratch-style baking: fruit pies, whoopie pies, and cakes. When Begin took over the business, she said, the business was too well known and well loved to change. 

Begin has made the business her own, however, incorporating family recipes, such as her great-grandmother’s raspberry and strawberry pies.

Begin, who worked in nonprofit management for 20 years, said she started baking as a hobby, learned from her grandmother and great aunts. It became a side project when her children were small. 

Eventually, she sold pies and hand pastries from her home kitchen, and within two years what began as a hobby became a business that had taken over her home.

“I was baking non-stop. We wanted our home back,” she said. 

When she began to look for a larger space, Two Fat Cats came up for sale. “It all sort of jelled,” she said.

Juliette Laaka can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 106 or at jlaaka@theforecaster.net. 

Stacy Begin, owner of Two Fat Cats Bakery on India Street in Portland, is opening a second location on Broadway in South Portland this spring.

Two Fat Cats Bakery in Portland is expanding to 740 Broadway, South Portland, the former site of Fernleaf Bakery.