LEESBURG — A new bakery is opening in Leesburg, and it’s a super-sweet family affair.
Grampy’s Bakery Inc., run by Shawnn Lynch, a kitchen and bath contractor based in Howey in the Hills, officially filed for his operating license on Sept. 3, 2025, and has a “coming soon” banner on its storefront.
Located at 1410 Griffin Road, Leesburg, the bakers and chief operators include Lynch and family members: his ex-wife, Lorie Howell, and his daughter, Heather Lynch.
Howell picked the name, founder Lynch said.
“Yeah, I’m Grampy!” he said with gusto. Lynch has five grandkids he’s very proud of, including two 10-year-old twins, Justin and Jace. Maddox is 9. Ryker is 10, and Benny is 3.
From Mendon, Massachusetts, Lynch, 58, has a somewhat wicked Mass. accent that reveals his birth state. He tells us that his “yahd” looks like “Sanford & Son’s,” referring to the old 1970s sitcom about a junkyard owner.
But it’s not junk in the yard, it’s bakery equipment. Lynch, who apprenticed at Italian and traditional American bakeries as a teenager, was almost ready to open Grampy’s this year, but ran into a bump in the road.
Lorie, said the Grampy’s founder, “loves to work with chocolate and specializes in gluten-free and keto desserts. Heather makes the best cheesecakes.” She’s also a licensed massage therapist.
What’s Lynch’s specialty? “That’s hard to say! Everything sweet, lol,” Lynch responded in a text. “My Boston cream and carrot cakes, people love the most.”
The building, more than 60 years old, needs major updates.
What else does Grampy’s plan to serve? “A huge variety” of desserts, he told the Daily Commercial, along with breads, rolls and croissants with a light lunch counter serving sandwiches and other handheld options. The current Griffin Road location has seating for 50.
“I’m hoping to offer a pretty wide array served at a 35-foot pastry counter, a typical old-fashioned bakery,” he said.
“Of course, we’ll have cannolis plus pies, brownies, creme puffs. I have 4,000 recipes. Birthday cakes, baby reveals, all forms of celebration. Anything and everything,” he added.
The idea of opening a bakery didn’t come to Lynch recently. It’s been a lifelong dream. “Everyone’s been telling me for 40 years, open a bakery, open a bakery, open a bakery! … This is a huge step.”
He lost four immediate family members within the span of a year, which nearly crushed him and caused him to reflect on how short life is and realize his lifelong dream of operating a bakery.
So, it’s fitting that celebrations will be a major theme of Grampy’s decor. He plans to offer customers the chance to share photos of their weddings, showers, celebrations of life and other occasions, which he will reprint in black-and-white and hang “all over the walls.”
This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: Family-owned Grampy’s Bakery soon to open in Leesburg
Reporting by Julie Garisto, Leesburg Daily Commercial / Daily Commercial
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
