The pouring rain couldn”t stop Bruce Wilson from getting his fix.
He stepped out of the deluge and into the State Fountain Bakery and Bistro at Mississippi State University on Friday and used his hand to squeegee the water from his shaved head. His soaking white graphic T-shirt clung to his back.
“I almost drowned coming in here,” Wilson joked to Dana Clemmons, the employee behind the glass case of pastries. Wilson has been coming to the bakery since he was a student at MSU in 1986, but since he moved to Slidell, La., he doesn”t make it back as often as he would like. He still has family in Starkville, which is a great excuse to fill up on his favorite snack: fruit bars.
“I come home and I”ve got to make a stop here,” he said.
He bought 21 bars, cleaning out the Fountain”s supply.
“It”s super common for us to run out of those favorites because people come in and stock up,” said Clemmons, the supervisor at the Fountain. “We had a guy call from Wisconsin wanting one of our chess pies. He said, ”I”ll pay whatever it costs.” He was desperate. It cost more to send it than the actual pie.”
Almost everything the bakery offers seems to be a favorite. Clemmons rattled off their specialty items in quick succession: Coconut and Turkish Macaroons, Fudge Fancies, Mississippi Mud brownies and Dog Bones, the Fountain”s signature sugar cookie. She said the Fountain is also the only bakery around that has Petit Fours, a small cake square drowned in decadent royal icing.
“We do it all,” Clemmons said. “Anything made of flour, water and sugar.”
But as popular as the bakery”s pastries are, Clemmons said as soon as the weather started getting warm after spring break, there was a run on the bistro”s ice cream, which is all made from milk produced at MSU”s own dairy farm.
“We have a lot of alumni that say, ”This is Mississippi State milk, right?”” Clemmons said. MSU milk is used in all of the restaurant”s cappuccinos and lattes, too.
The ice cream comes in three-gallon cartons, and Clemmons usually goes through three to five in a week. During this year”s Super Bulldog Weekend, however, she went through 10 in one Saturday.
The Fountain regularly rotates its flavors, the most popular of which is Muscadine Ripple, a grape-based ice cream.
“The joke is that you could put it between peanut butter cookies and have a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich,” Clemmons said. “We actually have students that will get a scoop and two cookies and make an ice-cream sandwich.”
Like many coffee shops and small restaurants, it”s a popular place for people to get together.
“We meet here a lot with friends,” said Joy Phillips, who was having a Bible study with her father, Randy, and two other young women.
“It”s a great place to get a cup of coffee,” Randy Phillips added. “Sometimes you come in here, and there”s nowhere to sit.”
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