MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. — A bakery in Menomonee Falls reopened Wednesday morning.
"I’m excited but also terrified because there’s not enough time to make as much stuff according to the amount of people that said they’re coming in," said Co-owners Kasey Gusho.
The bakery is normally closed Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday is the first time they'll be open since receiving backlash over a planned Drag Story Hour and Cupcake Decorating event.
Co-owners Kasey Gusho and Brittany Wohlfeil say they canceled the event after receiving 'threatening' and 'violent' messages. Despite that pushback, the pair of owners say they've received plenty of messages of support on social media.
"It’s just been a little overwhelming," said Kasey. "Some in a negative but some in a really positive way so kind of just trying to keep doing what we’re doing which is baking.”
“For every like angry voicemail that we’ve gotten we’ve gotten three or four really positive ones," said co-owner, Brittany Wohlfeil.
That positivity quickly filled the bakery, along with the smell of freshly baked croissants. One customer said she decided to support the bakery after watching our story here on TMJ4.
"Well I saw your story yesterday and today," said Helen, a first time customer. "This 'un-inclusiveness' is just ridiculous. At this day in age its silly and I just don’t want to support it. So I decided I would drive a fair distance. I am going to take all this to the office.”
"When I find like minded people who are on the right side of history, as I like to say, it makes me feel like there’s hope for this community," said Anne Kenny, customer.
Brittany and Kasey said even though they did cancel the drag story time event for safety reasons, there will be other events, each with a purpose that goes far beyond just baking.
"I started my career as a nurse in mental health so for us Courage MKE works with kids who we know are at risk of mental illness, physical illness, housing insecurity, food insecurity because we know kids in the LGBTQ community are at higher risk for this things," said Brittany. "We’re just going to do what we do and bake stuff and do thing we think make people happy and continue to be an inclusive environment."
And she'll do it with her sister and community by her side.
"Life just goes all over the place," said Kasey. "I never would have thought that we’d be here but I’m really happy that everyday I get to bake and do what I love to do and do it with my sister too.”
"To the people that may be showing up here today to show support or even donating to that organization, what would you want to say to them," asked TMJ4 Reporter Sydni Eure.
"Thank you," said Brittany. "Thank you so much. We know its very visible that we’re getting a lot of backlash so it’s really nice to have people coming in still and saying thank you. I hope that people know to direct that to Courage MKE too because that’s who this is really about.”
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