A chance decision led to success at Spring Hill Pastry Shop.
written by FOOD EDITOR STEVEN KEITH
photographed by NIKKI BOWMAN MILLS
SOMETIMES, A SUCCESSFUL CAREER is the result of a youngster having a clear vision of what they want to do with their life at an early age. And sometimes, it’s because there’s a work-study program at your school, you need the credits, and someone needs a janitor.
So begins the story of Robin Williams, who climbed from the bottom of the ladder to the top at Spring Hill Pastry Shop, a bakery in South Charleston that has racked up countless accolades during its 76 years in business. “I didn’t really care for school and had no plans after graduation, but South Charleston High had this program where kids could go work in local businesses,” Williams says. “They told me the bakery needed a janitor—and there I went.”
He started mopping floors and washing dishes back in the ’70s, then kept moving up through different jobs over the following 19 years before eventually buying the place. And even though he shares the same last name as the bakery’s original owner, they weren’t related, as most people believe. Jimmy “Pappy” Williams started Spring Hill Pastry back in 1948 and operated it for years until his son, Robert Williams, took over the business.
“Robert is the one who hired me, and I worked for him before he sold me the business,” Robin Williams recalls. “So we weren’t related, but people would ask me all the time, ‘Hey, how are your parents doing?’”
He chuckles at those memories, then gets a bit more reflective looking around at the iconic business he’s continued to build. “When I first started here, we had 12 employees, and today we have 25. I’ve been working here for 50 years and have owned the place for 31.”
The secret to his success? Change—or, in this case, a lack of it. “My approach has always been to change as little as possible,” he says of the old-school shop, much of which looks like it did decades ago. “We still use the same recipes and try to buy ingredients from the same people we did back in the day. We still make everything fresh every morning.”
They’re even still using the bakery’s original oven, although there’s now a second one that helps them turn out dozens upon dozens of treats at once. Those treats include all of the bakery favorites: pastries, pies, Danish pastries, donuts, breads, cookies, and cakes—not to mention those famous “WV Hot Dog” eclairs Spring Hill is famous for.
Williams says his “status quo” approach has served him well, providing a comfortable life for him and his wife, Chris, who also plays a role in their success. He says she was in nursing and medical sales for over 20 years before retiring to help out at the bakery. “Now, she does all of the computer work and payroll and all of the office stuff that I always hated anyway. So it was a good deal for me!”
And it seems those family ties will continue as they look to ease into retirement. Williams has a son who works at the bakery and a daughter who’s about to graduate from Elon. “We’re waiting to see how things work out, but the plan is for either one or both of them to end up running the place eventually.”
That gives Williams an immense amount of comfort, he admits. “It would be really hard to just walk away from it all. We have so many regulars who come in and seem to like what we do. I’ve learned that if you treat people right and take care of problems when they come up, it makes folks pretty happy. That’s what we do here, and we’ve been very fortunate.”
600 Chestnut Street, South Charleston, springhillpastry.com, @shpbakery on FB
READ MORE ARTICLES FROM WV LIVING’S SUMMER 2024 ISSUE
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