CHATHAM COUNTY, N.C. — Building a reputation for cinnamon rolls doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, this one took nearly a century and spans three generations.
Willy’s Cinnamon Rolls Etc. is a bakery tucked in the heart of downtown Pittsboro and when a customer walks in the door, the smiling face of Samantha Jacomet, Willy’s granddaughter, is ready to greet them.
“People come in, the new customers, and they're like, ‘Oh, I've heard that you have really good cinnamon rolls.’ And I'm like, guess everybody loves them because we don't really disappoint everybody,” Jacomet said. “I'm happy that I make people happy.”
She says this is something she can do for the rest of her life.
“My dad's been baking for 60 years, I've been baking for six years,” Jacomet said. “We make everything fresh, homemade, made from scratch and everybody loves stuff when it comes out of the oven.”
On an average day, the bakery churns out three or four batches of cinnamon rolls, with 25 rolls in each batch. Willy started baking during the Great Depression when she would help her own mother bake bread to sell for 10 cents.
“It's my grandma's recipe, I have, like, a little bit of memory of her, but not that much,” Jacomet said. “It's amazing that we carry her tradition till today. I know that if she was still around, she would be very happy.”
Memorizing a recipe is no easy feat for Jacomet — she has a disability that causes short-term memory loss, but that hasn’t stopped her from perfecting her grandmother’s cinnamon rolls. At 16, she started working in the bakery, which was designed specifically for her by her parents as a place she could work to provide for herself.
“At the beginning I was struggling. I didn't know what to do,” Jacomet said. “My dad was showing me all these recipes and he was like, ‘Oh yeah, just write it down so that you don't forget it.’ And now I don't have to look at the recipe now because I have it all memorized in my head. It feels great and amazing that I can do all this all by myself.”
Her goal now is showing others with disabilities what they’re capable of.
“I feel very, very accomplished,” Jacomet said.
The bakery opens at 7 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday, but if you can’t get there, they ship their cinnamon rolls nationwide and are always happy to fill custom orders. Jacomet says her two favorite compliments are people buying the rolls and telling her she looks like her grandma.
“Honestly, you can't really get these anywhere else except for here,” Jacomet said.