Thursday, October 1, 2026
CASHMERE — In our ongoing series on businesses that have been continuously operating for more than 40 years in the Wenatchee Valley, this entry comes from the heart of downtown Cashmere.
Sure to Rise Bakery has undergone a few name changes, and the owners have changed hands a few times over the bakery’s 78-year history, but one thing has never changed — the recipes. In fact, say owners Joel and Debbie Lutton, that was the one thing locals wanted to know when they took over the business in 2020: Did they plan to keep things the same?
The answer to that was a resounding yes. That’s a good thing, because the history of Sure to Rise Bakery is what keeps the legacy alive, even if it is the doughnuts that keep them in business.
In 1947, in the same building where the bakery is located now, it started as Bradley Bakery under the ownership of Leo Bradley, who had operated a bakery in the Henry Building across Cottage Avenue since the 1920s. One year later, under the new ownership of the Houg family, who’d also previously had a bakery in Cashmere, it adopted the name of the bakery the owners had previously run — the Cashmere Bakery.
It became a staple of the community. In addition to being the first stop of the day for many residents of the small town, the Cashmere Bakery sponsored numerous events, sports teams and other activities around Cashmere. They hosted an annual bazaar of handmade gifts. In 1959, a visitor named Mayme Ingram, on her way from Seattle to Wenatchee, stopped in Cashmere to make some phone calls, then visited the bakery to purchase something delicious and promptly dropped dead in front of the cash register, presumably because of the amazing smell inside the building. The store was a landmark.
In 1987, Vince Bosket purchased the Cashmere Bakery. Clever store names were all the rage at that time, and Bosket knew just what the bakery needed: A clever play on words, a double meaning of sorts. “Sure to Rise” was both a promise of the dough being proofed just right and a promise of the customer wanting to get out of bed early for pastries or doughnuts.
Along with the name change, Bosket ushered in an era of new treats to go with the hot cross buns, bread loaves and cinnamon rolls the town had come to expect. Filled doughnuts and bearclaws hit the menu, chocolate and maple combinations, new twists and jellies and variations on classics from the past. Rather than just an enriched white loaf or a whole wheat, Bosket made sourdough and English muffin bread, hamburger buns, sandwich rolls and a whole host of things that immediately became indispensable in the arsenal of any shop worth its baking powder.
And for 33 years, Bosket carried on the old traditions of the bakery under the guise of his new vision. He still sponsored events and teams, still hosted gatherings, and still made the freshest baked goods in town. But as time passed, he was ready to move on from baking and spend time with his family.
Nearly 100 years after Leo Bradley had his original bakery across the street from this location, Vince Bosket turned over the keys for Sure to Rise to Joel and Debbie Lutton in 2020. Joel grew up in this area, born in Wenatchee, then Peshastin-Dryden Elementary, and finally Cascade High School in Leavenworth. He married Debbie in 2019, and they began looking for a restaurant to buy. In fact, they weren’t even necessarily in the market for a bakery, but Bosket’s offer presented itself and they snapped it up.
That could have had something to do with the fact that Bosket had an old photo album on hand, and he turned to a page from 1995. There between the covers of that album was a picture of a birthday cake made for Joel’s tenth birthday, with the “Happy Birthday Joel” framing an image of Joel’s favorite baseball player, Ken Griffey, Jr. Surely there had to be another Joel who loved The Kid, right? “Just on the next page,” Joel says, “was my sister’s fifth birthday cake, a Rugrats cake, ‘Happy Birthday Kayla,’ and this is where my mom bought our cakes. Our birthdays are back to back, but five years apart.”
No two ways about it, Joel Lutton was already part of the history of Cashmere’s most famous bakery.
Unfortunately, that was just before disaster struck nationwide, starting in Washington State: The global COVID pandemic. Joel was ready to give up after doing deliveries and curbside service out the back door of the bakery. But as luck would have it, local serendipity struck again. “One of our customers asked us to deliver to the Post Office,” Debbie says. “That’s the wife that works at the Wenatchee Post Office. But the husband, what was that loan?” Joel helps her out: “One week before the cutoff for the SBA loan, he called us, because he was one of the loan agents at Key Bank.”
Andrew Liek from Key Bank called the Luttons out of the blue, based only on how much his wife had raved about their baked goods, on the off chance that they hadn’t heard about Small Business Administration loans or Payroll Protection Act loans. They had not, and that phone call saved their business.
Well, that and their promise to never change anything about the bakery. The couple recounts a tale in which they were “interviewed” by a group of old timers from Cashmere who have been coming to the bakery every Tuesday morning for as long as they can remember.
Debbie begins: “It was a panel of old people, every Tuesday they come here. They heard a new owner was coming.” “In fact you just missed them by an hour,” Joel interjects. Debbie starts again: “Me and Joel stood out in front of them, and they asked us, ‘Are you going to change anything?’ and we said ‘NO! Why would we change something that works? And you guys are part of the deal, so we’re also going to be buying you, so you HAVE to come here every Tuesday! No way are we going to change!’”
In Cashmere, many new businesses are geared toward a younger demographic. There’s a brand new record store with a deep selection of rock and indie hits. A relatively new hangout for cider and events. A trendy coffee shop here, an all-night pottery studio there — it begins to feel like the old-timey sensibility of the town once called Mission (because that’s what it started as) may be slipping away.
Asked how the older locals are feeling, whether this is still “their” town, Joel doesn’t hesitate. “As far as the bakery goes, they feel just the same as they always have.” Sure to Rise is their connection to the past. Debbie pipes up: “Not too long ago, an older customer said ‘I have a question for you: Are we still welcome here?’ and his face was serious. I asked him what he meant, and said ‘You’re always welcome here, you’re part of the business.’ He pointed his finger like this” — Debbie makes a pointing motion in the air — “and said ‘Good! Because I’m going to buy you a chair.’”
It turns out that the Tuesday morning group had recruited another member, and they were shy one seat for their new compatriot. No, this bakery isn’t going the way of demographic demise. They’re still here, and growing in popularity with every bite.
They may not have changed any recipes, but that hasn’t stopped them from adding to the menu. What’s new? “A little bit with some hot foods, we do our panini sandwiches, our breakfast burritos, the empanadas — which is actually a business that she started in the Philippines,” Joel says, motioning to Debbie. “Look what she did to me!” he says, rubbing his belly. “Bagels, we make bagels now,” Debbie offers. There was no hot food, they say, although Bosket did briefly introduce a puff pastry with a meat filling, but it took too much work, the Luttons say.
They’ve also got a version of “Dubai chocolate,” which apparently was a TikTok craze for a while. It looks like a standard chocolate bar, but it’s filled with kadayif (shredded phyllo dough) and a crunchy pistachio paste. That was another suggestion from a customer. Although the craze has died down, they’re still selling them for $15 a bar, likely because, as Debbie says, “Amazon is $38 for a little bar. We’re the cheapest anyone can find it.” Olivia Gray, their employee of a year and a half, says “You want me to grab one?”
This doesn’t end the interview, of course, but the rest is conducted with a mouthful of decadent chocolate and pistachio.
They haven’t revolutionized the menu or anything. All the standards are there. But where you used to only get a Bigfoot donut the standard way — a literal foot-shaped donut, heel to ball covered in maple, toes in chocolate — but now it comes in Reverse Bigfoot as well, with the maple where the chocolate is and vice versa.
They put their stamp on other people’s businesses as well. They make particular breads for the Wild Huckleberry’s various locations, some for Milepost 111 here in Cashmere, Take a Break Cafe, Renaissance and even Club Crow. It’s good to find out that local businesses are using locally-sourced bread. They used to do so much intralocal commerce, they’ve had to turn down contracts.
“It means everything, really,” says Joel. “We had a lady come in the other day, and she was telling me her first time coming into this bakery was 1965. To hear something like that and then think, ‘Wow, we’re the ones keeping this going…’ The hard part is thinking about, obviously we won’t be able to do this forever. Is somebody behind us going to keep this alive?”
“One thing we have going for us,” he says, “is that I don’t think this building could be anything else. It’s just so stained with, with… donut.”
So for the historical record, we have to get down what everyone’s favorite item in the bakery is. It’s an easy poll to conduct, because the crew is all here. Joel and Debbie, and their only two employees, Gray, who brought us the Dubai chocolate, and Yuli Infante, who’s been here nearly five years with the Luttons.
What’s not easy is answering the question. “That’s so tough, because we have a spectrum,” says Joel. “If it’s bread, I like the sourdough, for a donut, I like the maple whip, which is our addition to the menu. My favorite cookie, white chocolate macadamia.” Debbie agrees on the sourdough and the cookie, but she has other favorites. “For our cold case, I like the carrot cake, and the donut, sugar raised.”
Olivia is a woman after the valley’s heart when she offers her favorite donut. “Apple fritter. There’s FRESH APPLES in it,” she says, as if to remind us of a major export or something. Infante is busy at one of the stations in back, but clearly has a donut habit, because Joel immediately tells us “Maple Persian for Yuli.” “She dips it in milk,” says Debbie, cementing Yuli’s image as a regular donut diner.
“Wait! The Danish!”
“Oh! Caramel nut rolls!”
We could do this all day long, clearly. Joel waxes rhapsodic about maple bars momentarily, even praising the offerings of another big brand chain’s maple bars — in an emergency, of course.
You can be a part of the history of Sure to Rise Bakery just by pulling up a chair and enjoying a treat next to their cases in the front. They’re smack-dab in the middle of town, at 115 Cottage Avenue, open Tuesday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media
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