A business opening this month in downtown Orono fuses the owner’s passions for baking and cheering on the University of Maine hockey team.
Tammy Fields, who lives in Glenburn, hopes to open the Golden Bean Cafe at 5 Mill St. in Orono later this month. While she waits on her state license, she is decorating the newly renovated space with signed hockey jerseys, pucks, and photographs of star athletes and coaches.
The bakery portion of the business, which is located next door to the cafe but will be joined with it once a wall is demolished, will likely launch in July, she said. Fields still needs to renovate the space and install new equipment.
Fields, a longtime baker who draws inspiration from her grandmother and has reimagined some of her recipes, said her business brings something fresh to Orono. It will offer a variety of beverages, grab-and-go meals and baked goods — except for doughnuts, because there are already places in town selling those.
She nearly opened the Golden Bean at a space on outer Broadway in Bangor, but she’s glad she ended up in Orono, where UMaine sports decor is more fitting. She looks forward to building a business that “feels like family” and employs students, she said.
“Our goal is to have incoming freshmen work here and stay through their whole college career,” she said, adding the business will close during the Christmas holiday to give everyone time to rest.
Once the bakery is open, customers can expect to find cheesecake bars, cookies, scones, sweet breads, whoopie pies and other homemade baked goods, she said. Fields is also working to add ice cream. Besides a few staple cookies — they’ll be “giant” enough to eat a portion and save the rest for a snack later — her goal is to mix it up and bake something different each day, she said.
There will also be homemade dog treats and cupcakes to tie in with the business’ name, which pays homage to Fields’ grandpuppy, a golden retriever named Bean.
On the cafe side, a variety of coffee drinks and iced teas, like those using Lotus energy concentrates, will be on the menu. Red Barn Coffee Roasters, based in Massachusetts, will be providing the coffee beans. Pre-made fruit cups, salads, wraps and other grab-and-go foods will also be available.
The family of Guy Perron, whose photo is displayed on a wall inside the cafe, will make a specialty drink in his honor, Fields said. She was good friends with the former two-time UMaine hockey captain who died last year after a battle with pancreatic cancer. She even cared for his children when she operated an in-home daycare for a decade.
For each drink that the business sells, $1 will go toward a scholarship fund established by Perron’s family, she said.
Former UMaine hockey coaches Shawn Walsh, who died in 2001, and Red Gendron, who died in 2021, are also on that wall. Elsewhere in the cafe, she’ll feature Jeremy Swayman of the Boston Bruins, who once played for UMaine. Fields is working to fill the remaining wall space with hockey sticks and other items she has won at auctions. The bakery will focus on other sports.
Fields has loved hockey since her now adult son began playing as a child. Even though that ended in high school, her love for the sport only grew. She and her husband are season ticket holders and sponsor UMaine Athletics.
After she closed her in-home daycare in 2013, she attended Husson University while working for Bangor’s Parks and Recreation department. More recently, she was the finance manager at Dr. Lewis S. Libby School in Milford.
The 53-year-old is eager to try something new and pursue her love of baking full-time, she said.
“I want to be here for a long time,” she said. “Someday I want to pass this business down to my daughter, who also loves to bake.”
Golden Bean Cafe will be open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Once students return to UMaine, Fields hopes to also open on Sundays.
