Doozers

It started with cookie decorating videos. Claire Morgan-Heredia, a baker in the small town of Ishpeming just west of Marquette in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, enjoyed watching the videos in her free time and decided to try it out. Soon, Claire and her husband DJ Morgan-Heredia were using Michigan’s cottage food law to make cookies at home for sale at the local farmer’s market. With growing demand for their cookies, the hobby quickly evolved into a business named for a slang term popular in Claire’s family. 

“We started renting the bakery that I worked at after hours, and [Doozers] kept growing. The bakery was for sale and we wanted to purchase it, but it was just too much financially. We couldn't come up with the funds. We decided to focus all-in on Doozers and have our own storefront,” said Claire. 

From Corsets to Cookies

They found a space in the Gossard Building in downtown Ishpeming, the former site of a historic factory where women sewed corsets and bras for the H. W. Gossard Company from 1920 through 1976, with a peak of about 650 workers in the mid-1950s. Built in 1888, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.

“We have a really large space, almost 3000 square feet, split roughly in two. One side has our kitchen, and the other side is a giant space for seating and events, but we were not using it. It's hard to fill that much space,” said DJ. 

They rented out the seating area in a sublease to a coworking space provider, but it failed to thrive and soon closed. “We live in a pretty economically depressed area. There's not a lot of business professionals that hang around in town. What we did see was families, people needing to make phone calls, people just wanting to have a cup of coffee and talk for a few hours. Parents want a place they can go with their kids, that they don't have to helicopter-parent, where they can relax too. People need places to hang out and chill.”

Main Street Meets the 90s Living Room

With a vision to remake the bakery’s seating area, Doozers applied for and won a Match on Main grant in 2024 through the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC); the $25,000 grant, matched with $25,000 of their own money, was administered by the Lake Superior Community Partnership, a Small Business Support Hub in nearby Marquette. Work on the space was completed in November 2025.

Cathie Abad, small business program manager at the MEDC, reviewed the receipts and photos submitted by Doozers for reimbursement. “What really stood out to me was how this business owner made the project happen on an incredibly tight budget. They scrapped, saved and pieced every element together to bring their vision to life,” said Abad. “When I saw the photos of the completed project, I was genuinely floored by how beautifully it all came together.”

“Now our most popular feature of our space is the kids play area. We have a big table that you can draw on. There's lots of toys, a train table, a kitchen set, lots of free craft supplies, markers and pens,” said DJ. “We have families that come. They don't have to buy a cookie or a coffee or a drink, but most of them do, then go to the kids area and hang out there for three or four hours. You hear comments because it's right behind our kitchen wall: ‘This space is so nice. It's so nice that we can just come here and hang out.’” 

“DJ has been the curator of all the stuff in this space,” said Claire. “There’s a VHS and a DVD player, a record player, a CD player, a big speaker system. A guy came in a few weeks ago and said, ‘It looks like a 90s living room in there.’ And that’s totally what it is.”

Keeping with the living room atmosphere, Doozers has a collection of CDs, books and records available for people to enjoy on site or check out and take home. “We don't charge anything, and it's not even that formal. There was a gentleman who dropped off his record collection so that we could have more records to play,” said DJ.

The Sweet Spot

In addition to the seating area, the Match on Main grant allowed Claire and DJ to expand and equip their kitchen. The new equipment was vital for meeting area demand, for expanding offerings to small businesses via wholesale and for providing retail sales at their first grocery store partner.

“It’s allowing us to try new items and styles and techniques and hire more! We just made the decision to move forward with our first two new hires of the new year,” said DJ. “The grant was 100% responsible for the added business hopefully keeping them long-term!”

In the year to come, the couple hopes to continue developing Doozers as a community gathering space and anchor for downtown Ishpeming. “It's nice having a third space. When I grew up, I went to the library six days a week and just hung out there or a coffee shop. We wanted to add to the community with our space. A variety of third spaces is good, so that the community foundation remains strong.”