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By BETTY ADAMS
Staff Writer 01/16/2008

enlarge Staff photo by Andy Molloy

SOFT PRETZELS: Laura Fuchswanz is baking fresh pretzels at her business, Maine Soft Pretzel, in Augusta. The business, which also serves sandwiches, is located at the former Sunset Market on Northern Avenue.

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They simply couldn't find those unique smells and flavors in Maine.

In their native Woodstown, N.J., they packed sandwiches and pretzels in coolers, freezing the pretzels when they got to Maine for consumption over the next few months.

"We used to joke about it," said daughter Laura Fuchswanz.

She's no longer laughing; instead, she's ringing in the dough.

Laura Fuchswanz is turning a local yen for Philly-style food into money for herself, opening Maine Soft Pretzel at the corner of Northern Avenue and Townsend Road in Augusta.

She's following in a successful family tradition -- starting her own business at age 28, the same age her father was when he opened New England Battery & Tire on Riverside Drive almost 30 years ago.

"My dad is my mentor," Fuchswanz said, wearing an apron over her bright blue shirt.

"We always talked about it an she took the initiative and decided to do it," Marc Fuchswanz said.

He and son Mike also help with the heavy lifting, including moving the pretzel-pizza oven she bought.

The aroma of baking pretzels surrounds customers who walk into a bright white-and-yellow corner store known to longtime residents as Norm's Sunset Market and, later, as a deli.

For a short while, Maine Soft Pretzel offered only made-from-scratch, hand-twisted, yeast-based pretzels.

But the menu soon expanded.

"Everyone that came in was so used to it being Sunset Deli and Sunset Market, they would ask, 'Can we get a sandwich or a pizza?'" Laura Fuchswanz said.

So she added pizza, hoagies and, of course cheesesteaks.

"I wanted to stay with the Philly style," she said. "Now that we have an extended menu, people eat a pretzel while they're waiting for their sandwich."

The business has already won fans. "It's so funny hearing people from Philadelphia who come in," she said.

They'd taste and return.

The neighborhood has really supported her business, she said, with former owners stopping in to wish her luck and see the photos of the way the business looked decades ago.

Norman Pouliot, of Augusta, who ran the market as Norm's from 1975 to 1995, came to chat and brought home some pretzels.

"The cinnamon ones were very good," he said.

She's gained other fans, as well.

Lisa Owen, who stopped in not long ago, wrote a letter praising the pretzels and enclosing one of herself biting into a huge Laugenbrezel -- soft pretzel -- in Germany.

"I'm glad we decided to stay for the short-well-worth-the-10-minute wait," Owen said. "My mother and I sank our teeth into the most delicious pretzel I've tasted in a while. Kudos to your bakers and staff."

That's really kudos to Laura Fuchswanz, who begins making pretzels hours before the store opens to the public.

"Ours are baked from scratch every day," she said. "It's very similar to a bread, a flour-and-yeast mixture made into portion-sized pieces and rolled through the machine and hand-twisted."

The pretzel are topped with pretzel salt, which she buys in huge quantities.

"The leftover, we throw on the front step," she said, pointing to an ice-free entryway.

Fuchswanz, who went to Maranacook Community High School and the University of Maine at Farmington before moving into corporate sales in Tampa, Fla., now spends six days a week at her new store.

She has an assistant, Jeremy Ramsdell, of Gardiner, and her mother works alongside her for many of those hours.

"I said 'part-time,' Cindy Fuchswanz said. "I didn't expect full-time."

Betty Adams -- 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

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