Running for 20 straight years in a restored heritage building, one Revelstoke bakery’s bread-making legacy goes back much further — more than a century back, in fact.
Modern Bakeshop and Cafe, tucked in along Mackenzie Avenue next to city hall, has seen different names and ownership working out of the same edifice for the last 100 years, and the present owner says it’s the old recipes, customer memories and Canadian mountain town friendliness that help give this bakery its modern charm.
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According to Revelstoke Museum and Archives, the building that today houses Modern Bakeshop was first built and operated at 920 Third St. West by M.K. Lawson, who sold women’s clothing, children’s garments, embroidery and laces at least as long ago as 1898. In the spring of 1900, it relocated to 212 Mackenzie Ave.
In 1903, Albert and Alice Bennison bought the property to open Bennison’s Bakery (also called City Bakery), recruiting stonemason and bricklayer E.C. Fromey to build an oven. They became known for their wedding cakes, Ceylon tea and more, and passed the business onto C. Jones in 1907.
Then, around 1923, the store took the name of Modern Bakery under Louis “Luigi” Catlin, buying a mixer, baking pans and even a horse and wagon to get his business moving. Despite a tussle with the Cocoroch brothers he hired as bakers — they forced him out, defaulted on a loan and sold back the business and equipment — Catlin kept his grasp on the business. In 1931, he and Carmella Catlin had Pradolini Brothers Builders’ Supplies rebuilt the back of the building and install new ovens.
The store remained Modern Bakery until 1952, when Catlin died, then relaunched in the 1960s as Tony’s Roma Restaurant. The management tainted the heritage building with a pink stucco facade, but the city recovered the storefront’s original look during the 1980s downtown restoration project.
Maureen Weddell’s Mackenzie Station Café ran in the space until 1998, followed by various other businesses including the original Woolsey Creek Café. At last, the building returned to the baking game in 2005 under the name Modern Bakeshop, first owned by Kevan McCroy and Josee Zimanyi.
“It’s been a landmark for Revelstoke,” said current owner and manager Ranjeet Bhojiya, who’s lived the last couple years in Revelstoke after leaving his home of Vadodara in India’s Gujarat state.
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Bhojiya, who’s often behind the counter greeting customers, co-runs Modern Bakeshop with business partner and childhood friend Varun Solanki, who owned the bakery for eight years and now runs a pharmacy in Alberta.
Well aware of the long history etched into his business’s walls, Bhojiya said his staff are proud to serve baked goods using some of the exact same recipes as 20 years ago. Every year, Modern Bakeshop gets to reconnect with its past when one of its former bakers from two decades ago visits town with her family.
With tasty treats such as the carrot cake, cinnamon buns and signature Hippy Bomb, “She told me it’s still the same as what she used to make,” Bhojiya said, pointing out that the store also still wields a traditional bread machine.
He holds a bachelor of science in hospitality and has spent 18 years in the industry. He dedicated much of that time back in India running Lemon Tree Hotels, one of the country’s biggest hotel chains.
Yet in Canada, “The term of ‘hospitality’ is totally different here,” Bhojiya explained. “In India, it can be like, ‘guest is God.’”
Basic three-star hotel service in India could mean a shoeshine and other such services considered luxuries in North America are included for customers, but in exchange, “Generally we can’t be friendly with the guest,” Bhojiya said.
He added that he’s come to favour how in Canada customers and staff sit on a more level playing field and can freely interact.
Living in Revelstoke as well, “It’s rich in terms of culture,” he reflected. “People are so nice in this town and very friendly.”
Bhojiya appreciates the way locals invite him to events and even contacted him to check in when he left for a couple weeks this fall to visit Toronto. Moreover, he loves the stories that pour in from locals who stop to get a coffee or treat, and have been doing so for years and even decades.
“By word of mouth, they have their memories of this place,” Bhojiya said. “They have their stories — they used to sit, they used to chat with their friends.”
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At the end of the day, this building at 212 Mackenzie Ave. enjoyed some of its earliest days as a bakery, and 122 years later has moved with the times to return to being one. As things stand, besides having introduced table service in 2025 for breakfast and lunch, and adding some new French bread products, the owners fully intend to preserve Modern Bakeshop’s original aura.
“It’s a heritage building, so we can’t change much in it, and we don’t want to change much as well,” Bhojiya concluded.