The owner of She Takes the Cake is putting the beloved Hay River cafe up for sale.
After more than five years in business, Melissa Beck is ready for a change and is seeking a like-minded proprietor to take over her beloved downtown cafe.
"I'm more than willing to stay for a couple months, or as long as they need, to pass on all the knowledge that I have for the customer base... so it's not a complete turnaround," she said.
Beck, her husband and their two teenage daughters are planning to move south. They don't know exactly when or where yet, but they are keen for something different – an adventure.
"I figured why not try selling now, or finding the right buyer that would love to take it over and add to it, rather than take from it or change it completely, while I still have the time," she said.
While sitting at table inside her Courtoreille Street coffee shop on Wednesday, Beck said if the family were staying in town, she would not be giving up her business.
"I love the cafe and everything about the job, but I can't do it from afar," she said.
Beck was was a full-time bookkeeper in her previous life, and baking custom cakes out of her home on the side. She was baking so much then that she had a separate kitchen installed with its own entrance.
In 2011, Beck quit her day job to make baking her career, and She Takes the Cake was born.
Within a year of business, Beck's cakes were so popular that working from home was no longer feasible.
In the cake business, said Beck, demand peaks on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. This leaves little time to spend with family.
"I was pulling 15-, 16-hour days on just cakes on the weekends, and not seeing my kids when they were home on the weekends, so I knew I had to switch things up," she said.
In 2013, she moved her business into a storefront in the industrial area near Home Hardware and pivoted from custom cakes to coffees and baked goods.
The old shop was cozy and comfortable, "more like a living room setting," said Beck, but the kitchen was limited and the foot traffic minimal.
In May of 2014, Beck relocated to the space on Courtoreille St., which has a fully-equipped kitchen and can seat up to 50 people.
Beck said she will miss her customers the most.
Over the years, she has watched their lives change as they graduate high school, go off to university, or get pregnant and have babies.
Beck paused periodically as she recounted the story of her cafe to warmly greet each person who walked through the door.
"You form almost like a family with your regulars," she said.
As for what she will do next, Beck is undecided.
The family is not hung up on careers right now, or on finding a place to settle in permanently.
"We want to just lay low and do more travelling with the girls while they're still with us," she said.
Beck has learned a lot since first opening the doors to She Takes the Cake.
"A lot of people, when they go into business they're like me: headstrong, they have their own ideas, they know exactly what they want to do and they have this concept and they know it's going to work," she said.
But plans don't always play out as expected.
Beck's advice to entrepreneurs looking to start a business is to reach out to industry veterans, business people who have made the journey and can tell you where the bumps are.
Owning a business is "definitely hard, it definitely shows you what you're made of," she said.
"But if it's something you love and you're passionate about, it doesn't matter how long the days are or how hard it gets, at the end of the day you're still happy you're in it."