Wenatchee’s Franz Bakery Outlet to Close Permanently

With the forthcoming Confluence Parkway Project, Wenatchee's Franz Bakery Outlet store is in transition. The store closes for good on April 11.

This project comes with an awe-inspiring price tag: $134M. A second bridge will be erected over the Wenatchee River so as to decongest one of the city's key arteries. Phase 1 of the project also includes new bridges across the BNSF Railway, additional street extensions, a roundabout, a signalized intersection and greater access to trails and parks. Click here for more.

(A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for April 17. Tentative completion date: late 2027.)

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Significant real estate is required for the bridge, which will start at N. Miller St. and N. Wenatchee Ave. Out of apparent necessity, the city of Wenatchee has purchased six properties including the lot that houses Franz Bakery Outlet (1442 N. Miller St. #C).

How are Franz Bakery Outlet customers reacting to this acquisition spree? More to the point, how are they taking the closure of the store?

"You don't want to know," snickers Ozzie Reeves, general manager of the Wenatchee store. He has worked there for nine years. Overall reception has been resoundingly chilly, he says, with some customers supposedly questioning the efficacy and rationality of the Confluence Parkway Project. We await comment from city engineer Jake Lewing.

Asked how he's doing on a personal level, Reeves pointedly replies, "I'm losing my job. How do you think I feel?"

Post-closure, the nearest Franz Bakery Outlet store will be in Moses Lake (about 70 miles away). But new vistas of culinary delight are soon to be discovered.

Well, not exactly - a distribution center is coming to Walla Walla Ave., not far from GS Long Company, an agrochemical and fertilizer retailer. But as Reeves makes clear, this won't be a retail space.

Click here to read a timeline of Franz Bakery's history, which dates back to the Industrial Revolution. The store's namesake was 15 years old when he threw his hat in the breadmaking ring, and an economic migrant from Austria.