Sweet treats that hit the spot
Temporary bake sale fundraiser becomes family business
Photo courtesy of Karen and Paul McGarity
Karen and Paul McGarity pose at the Bullseye Bakery booth at the Good Neighbors Fest on Sept. 24, 2022.
January 9, 2023
The year is 2019. Archers from Highland Park Elementary and Lamar Middle School have qualified to go to the NASP Eastern National Archery tournament in Louisville, Ky. Lamar archer Riley McGarity and her family decide to put on a bake sale to fund travels. The people love it—and so do the McGaritys.
Our tagline is ‘Sweet treats that hit the spot.’ We make little bites of happiness with baked goods like the best zucchini bread you could have, the ultimate chocolate chip cookie.
— Paul McGarity
Her father, Paul McGarity, has always loved baking.
“I had some pretty good recipes for a few things I really enjoyed making,” Paul said. “I tend not to make anything that I wouldn’t want to eat myself since I’ve got a serious sweet tooth.”
The McGarity family members began to expand the business, continuously baking from their kitchen until they raised enough to cover their trip to Kentucky.
“The bake sales were such a hit,” Paul’s wife, Karen McGarity, said. “We had a lot of markets in our front yard where we met more neighbors than we ever knew we had.”
Following the competition in May 2019, customers kept requesting more.
“It just grew and grew until eventually we realized that we could do this full time,” Karen said.
Paul was able to quit his day job to take on their new project: a bakery.
“Bullseye Bakery—the name was a no-brainer,” Karen said. “It was in honor of our daughter, and while one day she might decide to move on to other things, it’s to honor her and the roots in the archery community.”
Soon, the McGarity family was able to take direct orders through its website. Bullseye Bakery created opportunities for clients to have baked goods delivered to their doorstep, as well as pickup locations and pop-ups.
“Our tagline is ‘Sweet treats that hit the spot,’” Paul said. “We make little bites of happiness with baked goods like the best zucchini bread you could have, the ultimate chocolate-chip cookie.”
Many of the menu items that Bullseye Bakery offers consist of classic baked goods—the chocolate chip cookie, banana bread, snickerdoodles and more. Paul, however, has worked to perfect and characterize each item with unique recipes and high quality.
“It’s about a lot of the classics or one of the recipes we have grown up with,” Karen said. “He has taken those recipes and nailed [them].”
Along the way, the magic and beauty of [Bullseye Bakery] has been the connections. Those relationships are really special. You connect through food. It’s a beautiful thing.
— Karen McGarity
While Paul is the baker, Karen, Riley and her younger sibling Alex also help with the process of preparing and selling goods.
“The business is completely family-run,” Riley said. “Our whole family helps with it right out of our house.”
Riley and her family work at big events and pop-ups, helping run a booth by packaging, labeling and working as a cashier.
“Even my parents like to come to bag and tag to help with the markets,” Karen said. “It’s just fun, we get a lot of laughs out of it and it doesn’t feel like work.”
For Paul and Karen, there is much more to the business than baking and selling.
“Along the way, the magic and beauty of it has been the connections,” Karen said. “Those relationships are really special. You connect through food. It’s a beautiful thing.”
The McGarity family’s acts of kindness have positively impacted many in its close circles and neighborhood, creating a community of support around them.
Our relationship has grown to the point where I want to do everything I can to support their business, and they’re really going out of their way to support our program. It’s just so cool, like magic. I never would have thought that something like this would happen.
— Jim Deline
“It’s such a great feeling,” Paul said. “A couple years ago when we had the big freeze, we had stockpiles of baked goods in the house. When nobody could get to a grocery store, we got together with our neighbors and gave bread to everybody.”
Bullseye Bakery has also gone out of its way to show support for the archery community and its founder, Jim DeLine.
“Our relationship has grown to the point where I want to do everything I can to support their business, and they’re really going out of their way to support our program,” DeLine said. “It’s just so cool, like magic. I never would have thought that something like this would happen.”
The love is reciprocated.
“Coach DeLine is so enthusiastic, loving, and supportive of this story,” Karen said.
The McGarity family sponsored the 2022 Intra-Squad Archery Tournament in October, where sophomore Riley competed on the McCallum team. At the end of each flight in the tournament, a one-arrow shoot off determined the winner of a bag of Bullseye Bakery cookies.
“Sponsoring the tournament and continuing to give cookie prizes has allowed us to continue to share that happiness back,” Karen said.
The bakery has also promised a supply of cookies for archery tournaments in the future.
“If you ask any archer, that’s probably one of the things they look forward to the most,” DeLine said.
The bag of cookies as a sweet reward is just the origin story of Bullseye Bakery.
“We are in the early stages of growth,” Paul said. “A few years down the road, I can see scholarships coming from us for archers going on to college. I think that would be wonderful.”
Julien Ballew • Feb 14, 2023 at 10:28 pm
I thought this story was great, it seems like the family is really happy and hearing about local, uplifting news is always a positive. The McGaritys seem really proud of their business and this article included some fantastic quotes from them.
Sally Butler • Feb 14, 2023 at 1:01 pm
I really enjoyed this story, I thought it was really wholesome and brought a smile to my face. There are so many news stories that are just really tragic and hard to read, even though it’s important to be informed about things that are hard. It’s nice to be able to read a story that is just simple and a good read. Besides that, I thought this article was really well written, gave great insight, and was very interesting.