Ex-teacher brings retro classroom vibe to new School House Bakery in Unity

Shoppers have a new option for sweet treats in Unity, with the Oct. 7 opening of the School House Bakery in the Latrobe 30 Plaza.

Display cases are filled with grab-and-go cookies, brownies, scones, cupcakes, small cakes, muffins, seasonally flavored cinnamon rolls and more, all baked on site.

Young patrons are especially drawn to the various flavors of giant cookies, about 6 inches in diameter, which sell for $2.95.

“Their eyes get really big and they say, ‘That’s as big as my head,’” said owner Julie Dickert of Latrobe.

The bakery also offers custom orders of cakes and cookies for special events, including birthday parties and wedding receptions.

Dickert previously had a small retail space with a kitchen and takeout counter in nearby Youngstown. As the business grew, she needed a larger space, including tables where customers could sit and enjoy their purchases.

So far, customer response has been even better than expected, she said.

“We had a very soft opening on (Oct. 5 and 6) for people we knew, and all those people came, and then the walk-by traffic was great,” Dickert said. “The week before, we had delivered cookies to every business in the plaza, so they knew we were opening.

“I posted opening day on Facebook, and we were sold out before end of day,” she said. “It was the same thing on Saturday — the line was out the door.”

Opening a bakery with a schoolhouse theme was intuitive for Dickert, who formerly taught English at the high school and community college level.

“I was going back and forth on a good name, and ‘School House’ came to me one night,” she said. “It was my background for so long, and I said, ‘That’s it, that’s it.’ It just made sense.”

Dickert grew up in Greensburg and started baking for fun when she was 15. Soon, she was in charge of the family Christmas cookies. Many of the recipes she uses at the bakery came from her mother, Cushie Dickert of Latrobe.

She earned a degree in secondary education at Slippery Rock University and then moved to Warren County to teach English, but continued to bake for family members and friends, who spread the word about her talents.

“It got to the point where people I didn’t know were contacting me and asking me to bake for them,” she said.

The baking slowed down after the birth of her daughters, Libby and Lauren Jones, now 22 and 19. After 11 years in Warren County, the family moved back to the Latrobe area, and Dickert taught English at Westmoreland County Community College for 13 years.

“I started again baking for fun and started sharing it with people, and they started saying. ‘We’ll pay you to do this.’ I said OK, and finally made it an official business in 2013,” Dickert said.

She first rented a commercial kitchen in Greensburg, then installed a commercial kitchen in the basement of her Latrobe house. She filled custom orders for individuals and also sold wholesale to clients including the Stanton Daily Grind coffee shop in New Stanton and the student-run Cats Cafe at Greater Latrobe Area High School.

“It got to the point where I was literally working all day while my kids were at school, then I’d feed them dinner and go back down to work some more,” Dickert said.

She moved to the Youngstown Grill in February 2020, but quickly realized it was too small.

She first considered the Latrobe 30 Plaza space a couple of years ago. Tucked between Don Patron Mexican Grill and The Laundry Room laundromat, it formerly housed a photo developing business, but had been vacant for several years.

“I signed the lease in March,” she said. “I was kind of scared, because I didn’t know if it was going to work.”

After the interior was gutted, Dickert went to work creating her retro schoolhouse vision for the shop.

The decor includes vintage desks, lockers, lunch boxes, a map and alphabet-themed artwork. The menu is inscribed on a green chalkboard.

Generations of former students will recognize the basic black-and-white clock from days of watching the school day drag on, flanked by the familiar portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln that adorned many a classroom wall.

The shop already had a room suitable for small parties and classes. Beginning next year, Dickert plans to offer cookie-making and cake-decorating classes and bakery-themed party rentals.

Right now, Dickert is sticking with mostly sweet options, along with occasional savory choices of scones, pepperoni rolls and breads. More savories may come as she gauges customer interest in them.

“The only thing we don’t do is donuts, because we don’t have a deep fryer,” she said.

Hours at the School House Bakery are 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays, 9 a.m.-noon Saturdays, and by appointment Mondays-Tuesdays for custom order pickups. For information, call 724-858-0767 or visit School House Bakery on Facebook.