SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine — Kerry Hanney and her team at Night Moves, a bakery in Biddeford, have spent years trying to find the perfect new location for the business to grow after struggling through the pandemic.
They didn't think it would be in a former motorcycle repair shop.
"You clearly have to have a little vision, most entrepreneurs do, but her words [were[, 'I saw the building, and I could see the Night Moves bakery in that location,'" Bill Mann, the economic development director with the City of South Portland, said referencing Hanney.
But the only thing baking inside Night Moves right now is major construction.
Hanney owns Night Moves and said the business plans to mill all of its bread in-house, especially making sourdough bread.
"The way we make bread here is one of the hardest ways possible, so it's a lot of hours," Hanney said.
Working throughout the night is nothing unusual for Hanney. It even inspired the name of her bakery.
"My dear friend Emily Papas was obsessed with the song Night Moves by Bob Seger at the time. That song kind of showed our joy and connection in the process of making bread together, it started out as a joke, but it stuck," Hanney explained.
Hanney moved to Portland the day after graduating from college. She worked miscellaneous jobs until finding her love for the kitchen.
"I studied sculpture, so I am doing the same thing just with dough. Bread was a totally different language from what I knew and it started to bother me that I didn't understand it," Hanney said.
Ten years later, her business is finally where she wanted it to be.
Hanney is aiming to open her permanent bakehouse full of sourdough bread and treats this spring at its new location at 695 Broadway in South Portland.
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