Benton bakery cites inflated economy in decision to close

Pictured (l. to r.) are Suzanne Godbold, along with Shelli Poole, making a cookie transaction.

A beloved business in Benton has made the decision to close their doors. Three Best Bakery started as an cottage business in 2016, with Suzanne Godbold whipping up sweet wonders from her home.

She partnered up and grew to open a storefront in downtown Benton. MySaline told you about it in October 2019. The bakery was there serving up cakes, cookies and other dessert items for roughly two years before growing again. This time, it was go big or go home – the bakery moved to lease a spot next to the new Olive Garden by the Interstate in Benton.

“Three Best was able to grow at a very rapid rate during 2021,” said Godbold. “So much so that we needed to find a new space that would work for our needs. I couldn’t find what we needed, so I decided to take a leap and build out a much bigger space than I originally had ideas for.”

And then there were delays. Their original mid-May move date turned to the end of July. “As is typical with construction, our move date kept getting pushed back,” Suzanne said. “We went about two and a half months without really taking many custom orders, or pushing a lot of online traffic – because it felt like at any moment it was going to be time to move.”

The price of eggs and butter, among other things, made all the difference. “September was a fantastic month and everything looked very promising, even with the steep increase in cost of goods that we were seeing. After the inflation/recession predictions came out in October, we saw a significant downturn in sales.”

“The economy had a lot to do with it,” said Suzanne. “I think people have had to make very important decisions about how they are spending their money. At the end of the day, we just weren’t making enough to cover our expenses. After multiple months of working and fighting so hard to keep it going, we had to make the incredibly hard and sad decision to close the business.”

When asked if the business would continue taking orders to be fulfilled in a different way, she said no. “Three Best Bakery is longer taking orders. All of our clients that were already on the books for 2023 have been either fully refunded or their orders have been taken over by other bakers in the area.”

So that’s the end of Three Best Bakery. The sign is still up on the front of the building, but so is another sign – “For Rent.”