Good to get out of the business and encourage other.

Speaker shares her life journey
By Ed McMenamin
Published: Thursday, October 23, 2008 3:15 PM CDT

PEKIN - Twenty-five years ago, a terrible fire inspired entrepreneur Mary Ardapple to start Apple's Bakery in Peoria.
“Had I not had my burn accident, and known that life can change tomorrow, I would not be an entrepreneur today,” she said. “So though that particular instance caused me a great deal of pain, it gave me the courage to say, ‘I really must participate in my life.' And so I have made a 25-year career of participating in my life, and consequently in my customers' lives.”
Now, she says she has “A lot of fun, and I eat really well.”
She described her experience as a restaurant and bakery owner Wednesday at the Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce Business Recognition Luncheon at the Pekin Country Club. Almost 200 local business people attended the luncheon.
Originally from Colorado, Ardapple said she never intended to stay in Peoria when she came to visit her sister for a summer in 1982.
But, she ended up with a job at O'Leary's restaurant as a prep cook. She already had a degree in business administration, and by the end of the summer she was the kitchen manager.
She said she went back to Colorado, but soon felt “homesick” for Peoria, and returned to become the general manager at O'Leary's in Peoria.
It was when she came back to Peoria, in the winter of 1983, that her “fire accident” changed her perspective.
“(It) put me into St. Francis hospital for about 11 days, 13 days,” she said. “And it badly burned my face and my arms. And when I came out of the hospital I found that O'Leary's restaurant had been put up for sale.”
With her father co-signing the loan, she purchased the restaurant.
“I had absolutely no idea what I was doing,” she said.
She must have had some clue, because eventually Apple's Bakery grew out of the O'Leary's.
She said that restaurant customers enjoyed her cookies and pies so much that in 1988 Apple's Bakery incorporated and moved to a modest space of 790 square feet with two employees.
The company now occupies 6,000 square feet, employs 20 people and is approaching $1 million in sales at its current location at 8412 N. Knoxville Ave., Peoria.