Toronto—The sticky buns, my oh my, the sticky buns. When I walk in to Sweetums from a street filled with commuters of all stripes—walkers, bikers, scooters, streetcar riders—the hustle and bustle of the city evaporates. The glorious aroma of caramelized sugar immediately transports me. I’m once again that wide-eyed boy of 10 back in 2032 about to take a sublime bite of my first Sweetums Sticky. I’m happy to report that they taste just as good today.  

Just as they were back then, the headline pastries are placed lovingly in their prominent window display promptly at eight every morning. This daily ritual at Sweetums has lured customers from the neighborhood around the Trinity Bellwoods bakery at 780 Queen Street and from across the city for 35 years now. 

Sweetums opened in 2015 as a labour of love for a small family, Thomas Harbord, his partner Jaimie Blackbird, and their baby boy Oscar. Thomas has been the baker from day one and is still churning out the treats today. After working in commercial bakeries and restaurants in his 20s, Thomas used a small family inheritance to purchase a cozy corner shop adjacent to one of Toronto’s most popular parks. 

“We didn’t know what we were doing business-wise when we started. We had a lot of fun though. I knew how to bake and being by the park seemed like a good idea.” Thomas says with a warm glow of recollection. Thomas baked while Jaimie worked the counter and the accounts, keeping the glass bakery display chockfull of muffins, cupcakes, pastries, and bread, and keeping a keen eye on the mischievous Oscar who delighted customers and exhausted his parents in about equal measure. The personal touch with the dough and the neighborhood was a recipe for success.

“A really friendly family baking really good stuff” is how one long-time customer, stopping by for a coffee and a scone on his way to work, gruffly described the Sweetums secret of neighborhood longevity.

It hasn’t been all sweetness and light these 35 years though. “We’ve seen our ups and downs for sure.” Jaimie says. The Covid pandemic of the early 20s was a rough patch, but the neighborhood rallied around their source for sweet treats and the bakery survived where many small businesses shuttered. Unfortunately, Covid was just a preview of trouble to come.  

“The combination of the energy price hikes and recession of the mid 2030s was really challenging for families like us that depended on energy not only for home needs but also for our livelihood,” Jaimie says, recalling the uncertainty and vulnerability. “It was one hit after another.” 

First came their house. A little bungalow in Little Italy that Thomas had grown up in. They had refinanced it in the early ‘30s to accommodate spending on the bakery and keep it afloat. But payments became too much, and they had to say goodbye to the family home in March 2035.

Thomas and Jaimie were determined to make the of best things. Like so many those days, they moved into a retrofitted development—an old high-rise tower touted as leading in energy efficiency and comfort with minimal costs needed for upkeep and maintaining comfort. The building was close to their previous house, and to the bakery. There were enough amenities close by and the proximity to other developments seemed great for re-building a community of friends and neighbours.

But the excitement of the move came to a sudden halt when, like so many in those days, Thomas and Jaimie realized how uncomfortable they were in their new place. “The building was most definitely a case of false advertising. We were constantly asking each other, how did this pass code?” Thomas says. Thomas and Jaimie took advantage of the Minimum Comfort Benefit (resulting from the passing of the Federal Wealth Distribution Tax in the early 2030s due to affordability and energy price hikes) to help with their energy costs but there was something so wrong with the design that it took a lot of money and energy to keep up with wild temperature swings in the “urban jungle.”

“It was rough, and we almost lost the bakery once again,” Thomas says, noting “our 20th anniversary was almost a going out of business party.” But they stayed afloat and always gave back. “We gave out a lot of bread those days to those hurting in the neighborhood from the economic downturn and the bakery was a refuge for us in dark times.”

Being ahead of their time, even for an old-fashioned bakery, helped save them. Thomas and Jaimie staked their claim to being a “climate friendly” bakery already in 2025 switching to electric ovens, purchasing renewable energy, putting in an electric heat pump, sourcing local and organic ingredients. 

“Treats for your Tummy and the Planet” reads a framed, faded construction paper poster that’s lost most of its glitter, the product of Oscar’s 5th grade art class. Customers loved the climate focus, but even more importantly those prescient decisions in the 20s unlocked significant government support during the recession and kept energy costs manageable for the business. They also were already ahead of the game when the retrofitting mandates came down. 

“We kept baking and people kept coming and somehow, we made it. Owning the building really helped because we were able to make the changes we knew we needed for the business and for our son’s future. We also weren’t subject to the crazy rent hikes so many of our neighbors faced over the years.”

By 2040, the worst was behind them. The rest, as they say in the bakery business, was a piece of cake. The bakery has been humming along for the last decade and the Harbord-Blackbird’s found a certified climate positive building to move into. It’s a comfortable and energy wise home in the west end where Thomas and Jaimie plan to spend their retirement. Yes, after 35, they’ll be putting down their pans in January and enjoying the view through the large smart windows of their condo overlooking High Park, when they’re not pitching in at the Toronto West Food Cooperative farm.

Don’t panic though! Sweetums Stickies and all the other treats will still be there for anyone with a hankering. Oscar and his partner Mathilde are taking over, continuing the tradition.