“Almost never,” she added. “I know that my former brother-in-law more than 40 years ago suggested when I got out of college that, since I’ve been baking, I should do something like a Mrs. Fields cookies business. It was kind of funny, because I remember at that point thinking and saying, ‘How do you expect me to make a living making cookies?'”

Now, Fairey sells homemade, handcrafted baked goods in her store, making treats such as sour cream coffee cake, Aunt Mary’s cowboy cookies, and many more original recipes.

Fairey and her children, who co-own the business, purchased the Grand Lake-adjacent store nearly three years ago.

Fairey didn’t think she would ever go into a business venture, mostly because she has a wall of degrees that have no relation to business.

News Photo by Mike Gonzalez Kris Fairey, co-owner and manager of Birch Hill Grocery, shows off her book collection at the store on March 26.

“I was in Connecticut and I had gone to Yale as an undergraduate, so then I went back to the Divinity School there with my three little kids,” Fairey said. “And not for the ordained ministry, but I use teaching as my vocation, or calling, and I got my teaching certification … By the time I was going to teach, I was divorced and I had this master, so I couldn’t go into public teaching because I was educated out of the lower level for unions.

“So I went back to Yale for graduate school and first got a master’s degree in history, then I got into the Renaissance studies Ph.D. program,” Fairey continued. “So I have a joint Ph.D. for history and Renaissance study, but it took 13 years. I mean, I had kids, so, by the time I actually did the research and finished my dissertation, it was 2008. I went back to my home state, Texas, after two years and then I moved to New York with a job in independent schools and lived there for nine years.”

Fairey stayed in New York until the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020. She said that, when the virus broke out, she was in her apartment for 79 days when she realized she wanted to try a different career.

By June 2020, Fairey resigned from her position as a teacher and went back to the one happy place for her: Grand Lake, to her family’s vacation home on Crescent Island.

“I’ve been up here since I was 7 weeks old, and I’ve only missed four summers at Grand Lake,” Fairey said. “I’ve always felt at home — like my heart feels at home — so I decided I’d move here and then figure out what to do. I got up here around August and looked at the grocery store with a realtor because it was on the market.”

News Photo by Mike Gonzalez Kris Fairey, co-owner and manager of Birch HIll Grocery, shows off chocolate on March 26 that will be sold at her store.

Fairey has fond memories of Birch Hill Grocery when she was a kid and saw an opportunity for a new path in life. Later, after seeing the store, she went to her three children and pitched an investment in which everyone would pitch in and own the business.

Two of the three invested with their mom, and, by June 23, 2021, they officially owned Birch Hill Grocery.

“My daughter, Heather, has since left the store ownership, but everything has been such a learning curve and great fun,” Fairey said. “By the time we opened, I knew I wanted to do a cafe and bakery. I also wanted everything to be as locally sourced as possible, with non-preservatives. Our tagline has expanded to, ‘Nourishing the spirit of Grand Lake with simply good foods.'”

In many ways, Fairey has turned the grocery store into a reflection of herself and a place for people to share their stories and love of Grand Lake and its community.

Merchandise from Brooklyn, New York, and Texas — Fairey’s home state — is shipped to the grocery store. A wall of books from Fairey’s personal collection towers over everyone who visits the store’s community hub, which she’s named “the living room.”

News Photo by Mike Gonzalez Kris Fairey, co-owner and manager of Birch Hill Grocery, looks at a history book on March 26 that shows old photos of the area around Grand Lake.

“My own dissertation is in here, somewhere,” Fairey said as she perused the collection. “It’s got to be somewhere. Anyway, it is largely for me, but this community hub started when I was first cleaning up the store. People kept stopping by, asking what was going on, and then told me their stories about being at Grand Lake.

“I can’t remember all the stories I heard, but I was surprised that everybody, like me, had similar stories about why this place is special,” Fairey continued. “It helped me realize that Birch Hill is in the center of the early Grand Lake community. It’s very specific, the number of people who’ve been through and have this sense of connection.”

By the end of September 2021, the Alpena Association of Lifelong Learners and Fairey set up an event called “Virtual Sense of Place,” in which four people had answered two questions: How they got to Grand Lake and why they stayed.

As a part of the event, Fairey put up a white poster board in the living room, placed thumbtacks, pre-cut ribbons, and pens next to it, and let people answer where they were from and how they got here, with Grand Lake placed in the middle of the board and locations of the world in an outer ring.

“The way it was designed with (Grand Lake) at the center and geographically going farther, you knew that it was going to cause ribbons to overlap,” Fairey said. “So, it was weaving, in a sense, and it was meant to be this visual representation of the community, and I’m thinking that the paper can’t stay there forever, so we’re going to get a collective of artists who can do this one piece that’s a visual representation of the people that can stay with the building.”

News Photo by Mike Gonzalez A television, table, and art from a local artist are shown in the living room of Birch Hill Grocery on March 26.

She said that one person has already started working on a felt iteration of the weaved ribbons and hopes to see it done by this summer.

Along with the “Sense of Place” piece that still hangs in the living room, Fairey has allowed local artists to hang their art around the social hub.

“The long-range plan is to be economically giving back to the community,” Fairey said. “It is about building communities and taking positive steps. My children and I think of ourselves as stewards of the store, not just owners. We’re keeping the essence of the store, preserving and nourishing it so that it’s here for the next group.”

News Photo by Mike Gonzalez The menu of Birch Hill Grocery is shown on March 26.

News Photo by Mike Gonzalez The outside of Birch Hill Grocery is seen on March 26.

News Photo by Mike Gonzalez A photograph of “Sense of Place” hangs in the living room of Birch Hill Grocery on March 26.