Lost Dog Coffee owner Garth Emmery Janssen, right, and his son, Zane Janssen, stand by the shop’s new bakery displays on Sunday afternoon. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — Sugar and spice and everything nice can now be found being whipped together into various confections in the new kitchen of Lost Dog Coffee. So far, items being baked in the kitchen, which was installed in the coffee shop during the COVID-19 Pandemic, include scones, fritters, cookies, dessert breads and pies.

According to Lost Dog Coffee owner Garth Emmery Janssen this past Sunday afternoon, this is like a full-circle experience for him. For several years, early in his shop’s 26-year history, Janssen was creating all of Lost Dog’s baked goods by himself out of his home kitchen. Unfortunately, doing so extended his regular six-hour work day to a 10-hour work day, which was impossible to maintain longterm, leading him to contract out the work to businesses like Ellsworth Catering in Shepherdstown and Burkholder’s Baked Goods in Sharpsburg.

“Selling others people’s goods wasn’t what we wanted to be aligning ourselves with, longterm. It certainly wasn’t representative to what our customer base really wants,” Janssen said, noting selling in-house baked goods will allow Lost Dog Coffee to ensure its food quality remains consistent. “We’re making everything from scratch, and we’re going to keep on adding on new recipes, so there’s always something different in our bakery cases. We’re approaching completely offering only our own stuff.”

According to Janssen, two baked goods categories have yet to been taken over by himself or his staff member of six months, Hannah Seaman: muffins, which Janssen said are still being delivered to the shop by a local baker with a near-unbeatable recipe, and biscotti. This coming week, Janssen hopes to begin making biscotti out of Lost Dog Coffee’s kitchen, like he did out of his home kitchen years ago. He is also involved with baking the coffee shop’s scones, leaving the remaining baking up to Seaman to complete.

“Right now, Hannah is sort of refining the layout of the kitchen, the workflow of the kitchen, so I am staying out of her way back there,” Janssen said, mentioning the bakery officially began selling items in December. “Hannah is new with us. She has a lot of experience with baking at home. She is doing an outstanding job!”

Shepherdstown resident Mike Binder and his eight-year-old dog, Shelby, wait for a cup of coffee at Lost Dog Coffee’s window on Sunday afternoon. Tabitha Johnston

Seaman, who is a Shepherdstown resident, was severely injured by a strain of the flu when she was 15-years-old, which left her heart functioning at around 15 percent. Over the four years since then, she has had to deal with her congenital heart failure by using a Bluetooth-enabled pacemaker system, finishing high school via homeschooling and developing new interests, such as baking from a 1700s-era family cookbook. Recipes from that same cookbook have already found themselves in Lost Dog Coffee’s bakery display case, most noticeably in the form of Janssen’s favorite, the Old Time Ginger Cake cookie.

“Hannah’s basically in charge of baking. She’s turned out to be one of the best employees I’ve ever had,” Janssen said, noting a recent time when she came in, already having rolled out pie dough before coming into work that day. “She goes above and beyond the call of duty.”

As far as other aspects that make the coffee shop into “Lost Dog 2.0,” Janssen listed his decision to only offer indoor seating during inclement or extreme weather conditions; his determination to continue using the window on the front of his shop as his sales line, rather than opening a register indoors by his bakery case; and his resolution against bringing back wifi access after the end of the pandemic.

“We’re not going to provide internet anymore. We want people to pretend like it’s 1996 again and talk to one another — that’s what people did before the internet, and that’s what we need in a community space like this,” Janssen said.

Peach fritters and apple fritters sit on Lost Dog Coffee’s display counter last Sunday afternoon. Tabitha Johnston

The interior of Lost Dog Coffee was reopened to customers in December, so they could find shelter in it during inclement or extreme weather. Tabitha Johnston

Lost Dog cookie flavors encompass a broad range, from Old Time Ginger Cake to Peppermint White Chocolate Chip. Tabitha Johnston