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Business & Tech

Gingerbread Construction Co. Braces for Holiday Rush

At the Gingerbread Construction Co., hundreds of customers line up for freshly baked muffins on Christmas Eve day.

The first thing that hits you as you approach the is the aroma – the sweetness of gingerbread, muffins, and cookies fills the air. Step inside and it’s a pre-holiday frenzy as workers churn out baked goods that customers come in steady streams to pick up.

This a hectic time for the Gingerbread Construction Company, whose flagship store is in Winchester but does most baking at a second location in Wakefield.

The stores do a brisk business in gingerbread houses and gingerbread cookies throughout December, but the busiest day of the year is coming up on Saturday. That’s Christmas Eve, when hundreds of customers line up annually for the bakery’s decadent muffins, which come in 20 varieties. The muffins are a Christmas Day breakfast tradition for many local families, who place their orders in advance and arrive prepared to wait for over an hour to pick up their baked goods. 

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“It’s amazing,” said general manager Michele Clements, describing the lines that snake out of both stores and through the parking lots on the day before Christmas. Despite the wait, she said, customers are universally cheerful.

“It’s really a warm feeling,” Clements said. “You can hear them chit-chatting, saying, ‘We do this every year.’ They don’t get upset to wait in line.”

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The Gingerbread Construction Company was born when husband and wife team John and Janet D’Orsi began making gingerbread houses in their Stoneham home and selling them at local craft shows. Soon they wanted to expand to a retail location, but knew they’d have to move beyond gingerbread houses to succeed. John D’Orsi, who used to work for Dunkin’ Donuts, developed a line of six muffins plus cookies, and opened the company’s first store in Winchester in 1987.

In 1995, the D’Orsis opened a second location in Wakefield, which quickly became the most popular and largest location. These days, the Wakefield store handles all of the muffin baking and gingerbread house construction. However, fresh muffins are still available in Winchester thanks to delivery from Wakefield three times a day.

The gingerbread muffin is the most popular variety year round. Other favorites include carrot cake, strawberry shortcake, and blueberry. These aren’t your average muffins: many are frosted, filled with cream and fruit, and dusted with powdered sugar, making for a confection somewhere between a very sweet breakfast and a dessert. Also on the menu are cookies, muffin loaves, and coffee.

Clements, who put herself through college working at the Gingerbread Construction Company as a teenager, said she still loves her job after years of baking.

“People come in and they’re just in awe. You see people come in and they have so much joy in muffins and gingerbread houses,” she said.

It’s still possible to order muffins for the holidays, or to go into the store and pick up a ready-made gingerbread house. The staff will be baking those Christmas Eve muffins starting at 11 p.m. on Friday night all the way through Saturday to keep up with demand.

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