Cafe 7-10 is currently closed, but only so it can bust out a wall and install double doors and let more people in when they reopen in April.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” said Mabel Howard about how the expansion of her business makes her feel. “It’s surreal. I just hope Erie is enjoying each part of it.”
She and her mother, Thelma Blanks-Howard, 64, opened the shop at 7 W. 10th St. in 2019 and last summer opened a satellite location at the vestibule outside Blasco Library. Now, they’re knocking down walls to build a commercial kitchen at the original location, meaning Blanks-Howard doesn’t have to work around other bakers’ schedules and tote her baked goods from place to place.
“Also people can smell the aroma when they walk in these sweet doors,” said Howard, 46, as she looked around at the construction site that is currently her shop.
“This is a dream coming true,” Mabel Howard said. “I’m overjoyed, literally,” as she pointed out where the eastern wall of the shop used to be.
“Even when we opened, I wondered what it would be like to have the other side of that wall,” Howard said. “This is just the next phase of the growth of our business.”