ZELIENOPLE — The first thing customers notice upon entering Carol's Pastry Shop on Main Street is the aroma of fresh baked goods.

Glass cases that line the shop are filled with an assortment of goodies, cookies, cupcakes, doughnuts and danishes, all homemade.

Carol Wahl, 58, who owns the bakery with her husband, Richard, 57, has worked tirelessly for more than 30 years. Their reputation for quality products lures residents from around Butler County to the shop.

“It's what I've been doing all these years,” she said. “I can't imagine doing anything else.”

The Wahls bought the shop in 1974 after Richard had worked for a bakery. She was only 21 at the time and left a banking job in pursuit of owning a business with her husband.

The original business was known as KC Bakery. They bought their current site, which was a laundromat at one time, in 1985.

Wahl said she never dreamed of owning her own pastry shop, but her husband taught her the trade.

After learning by doing and by taking cake decorating classes, she now designs the shop's elaborate specialty cakes for weddings and birthdays.

“I never thought about owning a bakery when I was growing up,” Wahl said. “I thought I would be a school teacher or something.”

Her husband's passion for baking began in high school after he started working at a bakery. Shortly after, he knew it was his lifelong calling.

“He would start out washing pans and when he got done with that, they let him make dough and other things.” Wahl said of her husband. “He decided he liked it.”

After graduating from high school, he attended a 10-month baking program at Dunwoody Industrial Institute in Minneapolis. She followed and they married in the middle of his training.

When they moved back to Pennsylvania and jumped on the opportunity of owning a bakery, they soon found that their lives were consumed by baking.

Five days a week starting at 4:30 a.m. Carol is at the shop icing danishes and doughnuts — which run the gamut from cream filled to sugar glazed — and setting up the cases before the store opens.

“It's a lot of work and a lot of commitment every day.” she said. “But it's nice because you get to know the customers.”

Richard mixes all the dough and bakes the cookies, danishes, pastries, breads and doughnuts.

“Our goal is to make things the best we can and hope that people enjoy them,” Carol said. “People don't always realize that these products are homemade.”

Wahl spends most of her morning waiting on customers until Marjorie Jackson, the store manager, comes in for her shift. Then Wahl juggles taking orders and decorating cakes until the shop closes at 6 p.m. on weekdays and 5 p.m. on Saturdays.

The shop is closed two weeks a year so the Wahls can take a family vacation.

But baking doesn't leave their minds. Carol remembers bringing home a cake that they tried at the beach and attempting to duplicate it at the shop.

Wahl takes pride in maintaining a quality reputation.

“When we first started out, we just wanted to make a good product and wanted people to come in and enjoy what they bought,” Wahl said “We are a family bakery, so we wanted people to know that.”

The Wahls children, Eli, Ryan-Sue and Moses, all grew up helping at the bakery. Their customers remember when the children were “little ones” working in the shop.

“My kids weren't that enthused about it because they had to help out here growing up,” Wahl said. “But, my grandkids love it.”

The most famous product at the shop is the bear claw danish. Wahl recalls a local woman who had moved to Tennessee always made the bakery a must stop on return visits.

“They would load up on the bear claw danish,” Wahl said. “Before they left, they'd come in and get some to take home with them.”

Wahl said that even though the bakery has remained successful, there have been obstacles along the way.

“New businesses open up that take business away and businesses moving away that were drawing people in,” Wahl said. “Plus I've had kids.”

But it hasn't stopped the Wahls from gaining fame in Zelienople, Pittsburgh and beyond. The store was voted as the best pastry shop around Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh Magazine's Best of the ‘Burgh list.

“I think our success is using good ingredients,” said Wahl.

When she isn't at the bakery, her free time is spent reading and attending the Zelienople Church of the Nazarene.

“I thank God for all the years he has watched over us,” Wahl said. “We wouldn't have made it without his help.”

<b>Age: </b>58<b>Address: </b>Zelienople<b>Family: </b>Husband, Richard, and three children, Eli, Moses and Ryan-Sue<b>Employment: </b>Owner of Carol's Pastry Shop in Zelienople<b>Education: </b>Slippery Rock High School<b>Interests: </b>Reading and walking<b>Quote: </b>“Our goal is to make things the best we can and hope that people enjoy them.”