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Cinnamon bread sits on a display rack at Sinsinawa Bakery in Sinsinawa, Wis., on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024 Greeting Card Display Stand
Roux and Lucia’s, a deli under construction on South Grandview Avenue in Dubuque, plans to sell Sinsinawa Bakery’s cinnamon bread.
Cinnamon bread sits on a display rack at Sinsinawa Bakery in Sinsinawa, Wis., on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024
Roux and Lucia’s, a deli under construction on South Grandview Avenue in Dubuque, plans to sell Sinsinawa Bakery’s cinnamon bread.
SINSINAWA, Wis. — As the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa continue taking steps to downsize their footprint at Sinsinawa Mound, the congregation is partnering with a Dubuque business to ensure that a popular bread produced at the Mound will still be available.
Sinsinawa Bakery will cease production of baked goods next month. Roux and Lucia’s, a gourmet market and café poised to open later this spring at 620 S. Grandview Ave. in Dubuque, then will produce and sell the cinnamon bread.
The bakery has long been famous for its cinnamon bread, which is currently sold at the Mound’s book and gift gallery, at local retail stores, at Dubuque Farmers Market and online.
“We’re very attached to the (cinnamon bread) and the love that people have for the product and the smells that run through the motherhouse when it’s being baked,” said Sister Christina Heltsley, prioress of the Sinsinawa Dominican congregation. “All of those things are very sensory and heartfelt.”
However, the building that houses the bakery is among several that will soon be transferred to Tricon Construction Group, which purchased several buildings and intends to transform the spaces into a senior living area and event center. The Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa last year announced the planned transfer of the rotunda and convent buildings, including Queen of the Rosary Chapel, main foyer, dining room, sleeping quarters and guest rooms.
The Sinsinawa Dominican congregation’s membership has declined in membership since the 1960s, and most of the remaining sisters living at Sinsinawa Mound are in the process of moving to an assisted living facility in Muskego, Wis., to receive more advanced care. The Mound campus still will serve as the congregation’s headquarters and will be home to about 25 sisters and the leadership team, according to Heltsley.
She said Tricon offered the continued use of the bakery to the sisters even after the transfer, but the congregation would no longer own the space, and the plan also would have required significant updates to the campus’ water treatment system.
“We felt it would be better to try and move our bakery somewhere else,” she said.
As fate would have it, a local family with a connection to the Sinsinawa Dominicans was already in the process of planning their own bakery.
Tim Conlon, CEO of Conlon Construction Co., is currently overseeing an extensive overhaul of the 620 S. Grandview property commonly referred to as the “Milk House.”
Once renovations are complete, the main building of the property will operate as a coffee bar, grocery store and deli, while a new structure in the rear will house a bakery and ice cream/gelato shop. Roux and Lucia’s, as the business will be called, is owned by Conlon and his daughter Roux Conlon Loar.
Conlon Loar said her family has long had a connection with the Sinsinawa Dominicans: two of her father’s aunts were sisters at the Mound.
“They had heard about how we were opening a bakery ... so we started meeting back in the late summer to look into what would be a possibility instead of just ceasing to produce what is a very longtime, beloved bread that everyone knows about and that has a huge clientele,” she said.
Heltsley said the sisters are licensing the bread to Roux and Lucia’s, where it will be produced and sold once the bakery opens. Production of bread and baked goods at the Mound will end Feb. 25, at which time its book and gift gallery will close, as it is also located in a building that will be sold.
Conlon Loar said the Sinsinawa Bakery cinnamon bread initially will be exclusively available at Roux and Lucia’s, not online or in local retailers.
“We are just going to try to see how much we can produce at first, and once we get settled in … there’s a potential for ramping back up and possibly doing wholesale orders again, selling bread kits online and possibly bringing the bread back to the Farmers Market,” she said. “For now, because of all the moving parts and everything being new, we’re going to take it slow.”
Heltsley said all the workers who currently make the cinnamon bread at the Mound’s bakery are laypeople, most of whom will be transferring to employment with Roux and Lucia’s.
She said although the book and gift gallery will temporarily close at the end of February, the plan is to reopen it following the completion of an ongoing $11.5 million renovation project in the buildings the congregation will retain: the Stone Building and St. Clara Chapel, in addition to the land around the buildings.
“The book and gift shop is going to take a pause, but it will come back in the renovated space ... and if we decide in the future to have a bakery at the motherhouse in a different location, we could do that as well,” she said, later adding, “We, meaning the Sinsinawa Dominicans, are not going away.”
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