Some Owensboro residents may be doing double takes if they seen the iconic brown-and-white, polka-dotted “The Baker’s Rack” delivery car on local roads this summer.
But The Baker’s Rack is not delivering gifts from the store that closed in 2018. Rather, Mary Grace Hemingway purchased it after her first car was totaled in an accident.
“My first car held many memories, and it was hard to let go, so my next car had a lot to live up to,” Hemingway said.
When Hemingway was asked by her parents what car she would like after her accident, she responded with “The Baker’s Rack car.”
“I had always wondered what had happened to the car and, honestly, said it as a joke,” she said. “My dad always wanted to deliver for The Baker’s Rack as his retirement job because he said, ‘every time you see The Baker’s Rack car outside your house, you smile.’”
Sara Hemingway contacted Anne Baker Leazenby, former owner of the 44-year-old landmark gift and home boutique. According to both women, Leazenby was excited since the car had been out of service for 3 years.
In April, Hemingway received a picture of the box car in her family’s driveway, but she wouldn’t be home to drive it for a few more weeks.
Hemingway said that she feels like she is “in a rom-com” when driving it around town, and when she is in Owensboro, people wave, honk and point at the car.
“I’ll get texts about friends seeing it in the driveway and wanting to know the story,” she said, adding that Leazenby also gets questions about its sightings.
Hemingway returned to the University of Kentucky where she attends college — and where most people aren’t as aware of the history of the car and often think she is delivering cupcakes or baked goods.
“I get a lot of stares and smiles everywhere I go,” she said.
Hemingway has taken the stickers off the back windshield and soon will remove the phone number, but as she considers changes to the car she said the “free delivery” sticker on the back may remain as it has saved her from a couple of parking tickets on campus.
She added that “The polka dots are staying, for sure.”
