Delightful and mouthwatering cookies, brownies, cakes, cinnamon rolls, cheesecakes, pretzel bites, and more!
Can you recall the scene in Runaway Bride where the small-town baker helps Maggie (Julia Roberts) choose wedding cake toppers—only to have Ike (Richard Gere) smash them into the frosting? Later, when Maggie finally marries Ike in an open field, the same charming baker dances with joy in celebration. It’s a favorite moment—and as luck would have it, Kamas has its own quintessential baker: Mandy-Joe’s Bakery on Main Street, lovingly owned and run by Mandy Keddington.
When I walked in to speak with Mandy, she was bent over the stove stirring a huge pot of deliciously fragrant browning butter, a key ingredient in many of her recipes. In talking with Mandy (and eating her baked goods), it’s clear she doesn’t skimp on the quality of ingredients used, and you can taste the effort.
“I use all real ingredients,” Mandy explains, “I don’t use any synthetic dyes. It’s all natural dyes. I use real butter and good-quality chocolate. The only exception is if something has M&M’s or something like that in it.” She smiles as she continues, “You really can taste the difference. I wouldn’t use anything here I wouldn’t use at home for my family.” The eggs she uses are sourced from a small family-run farm just up the road in Oakley.
Mandy has been baking practically all her life. At just 12 years old, she took on the weekly task of baking cookies—keeping the cookie jar stocked for a bustling household with eight kids. She began by following the recipe on the back of the Nestlé chocolate chips package, and built from there. She learned a lot watching the Food Network “back when that was a thing— I watched a lot of Julia Child and Rachel Ray when I got older.”
However, the majority of what she has learned has come from practice and experimenting with ingredients. Some of her friends call her the “master of tweaking.” Mandy truly loves baking, and still does it for the joy of it. She admits that things change from batch to batch (a side effect of “baking from the heart,” as she puts it), and rarely sets a timer, stating that her nose is the best timer! “The nose knows. I can just tell when something is ready.” Her menu has classic mainstays, but also gets “fun surprises” depending on what inspires her that day.
Baking from the heart isn’t just part of Mandy’s process—it’s the reason her shop exists. Mandy and her husband, Joe, married in 1999, after being introduced at a “buddy dance” by her roommates, who happened to be his sisters. Joe is a veteran of the Utah Army National Guard, and his career took them to Columbus, GA, where he worked in linguistics. Mandy readjusted her recipes for Georgia’s lower elevation and was constantly baking for friends there, and eventually their growing family.
They adopted their two oldest sons, Chase and James, before moving back to Utah after Joe retired from the military. At which point, they needed to find a way to supplement their income. “The transition out of the military is challenging.” Mandy began baking at home and posting on Facebook Marketplace.
Things were going well, but Mandy really wanted to take her business to the next level. Her dad surprised her with a solution— an old camper! Together, they gutted, outfitted, and beautified it, turning it into her bakery. In 2020, Mandy received another surprise – she was pregnant. Mandy took a break for two years to enjoy pregnancy and the birth of their third son. By 2022, Mandy was baking at home for another local business, but had dreams of opening her own shop. The stars aligned, and she opened shop in a 200 sq foot space just a couple of storefronts away from where Mandy-Joe’s is now located.
Although the bakery is Mandy’s, she shares the work—and the heart behind it—with her husband, Joe. “[Joe] is the people-person, and half the heart of this place. He’s all about the customers,” Mandy beams. That partnership is reflected in their logo: a turquoise heart with “Mandy-Joe’s” written below in red. In the storefront, her dad, Barry Walker, sells woodwork, and her sister-in-law, Brittany Walker, has crocheted goods. Love fills this bakery, and you can feel it the moment you walk in. It is definitely a family business run with heart.
Like any business, they face challenges—the most frustrating being the soaring cost of ingredients. Since 2020, the cost of every ingredient has doubled, and some (chocolate, for example) have even tripled. And there have been plenty of learning curves, Mandy laughs as she explains that she is “not a business woman by nature.” Even so, she truly enjoys being a part of the close-knit business family on Main Street.
Mandy is proud to own a business in Kamas. Her family has lived in the Kamas Valley for four generations now, including her sons. They have farmed, worked in education at the South Summit School District, and now she is continuing that legacy with her bakery, Mandy-Joe’s. Each business heavily affects the others around them. Of this, she says, “We are all part of the puzzle that is Main Street. We look out for each other. It’s nice to see how we all care for one another.”
Mandy loves that the bakery lets her “get to know new faces from new places.” Right by the register, a push-pin map of the United States tells the story, with colorful pins marking where visitors have traveled from—almost every state has one! Looking ahead, Mandy hopes to see more mom-and-pop shops open and stick around, creating cozy spaces where people can linger, chat, and connect.
You can find Mandy-Joe’s baked goods at 54 N Main Street and the +7 Farm Store in Kamas, and at Mix’ Place in Coalville.
