Gov. Kotek Highlights Sweet Wife Baking, Owned by Former WNBA Star

Governor Tina Kotek turned a national social media platform into a Main Street advertisement for Baker City when she featured Sweet Wife Baking in her ongoing #WeLoveOregon365 local business series, spotlighting owner Jenny Mowe as "a former WNBA and Oregon Ducks women's basketball standout" who brings "the same passion and discipline into the kitchen."

The recognition carries real weight for a downtown block where foot traffic translates directly to local jobs. Sweet Wife, now operating out of the historic Lynndale Building at 2028 Main St., employs 25 people, 12 of them full-time, along with Mowe, her husband Loran, and their sons Jack and Miles. That workforce is a long way from the single employee Mowe hired after moving operations from Resort Street to the current location in July 2021. The shop is open seven days a week, 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Yelp's March 2026 listing flags a new menu for visitors coming in on the strength of the governor's post.

Mowe's backstory is the kind that drives shares. She was a 6-foot-5 center for the Oregon Ducks from 1997 to 2001 and became the first woman from that program drafted into the WNBA, going 20th overall to the Portland Fire in 2001. After three professional seasons, she settled in Baker City with Loran, a Baker City native, and spent years at home before starting Sweet Wife as a wholesale and custom-order operation out of the Baker Tower in January 2011. The name, she has noted, is a wink at her own tall, athletic frame.

The shop's reputation was already statewide before Kotek's feature. Sweet Wife swept four categories in the Go! Readers' Choice contest, winning Best Bakery, Best Breakfast, Best Dessert and Best Sweets. On TripAdvisor, it holds a 4.8 out of 5 rating and ranks second among Baker City's 33 restaurants.

The menu leans into scratch cooking across categories: pastries, grain bowls, breakfast sandwiches, soups, salads, and a full bar serving craft cocktails, beer and wine. Custom orders can be placed at jenny@sweetwifebaking.com, and a private event space with a skylight on the building's upper floor is nearing completion.

A governor's social media post won't rewire a town's economy by itself, but for a 25-person operation in a city of roughly 10,000, the attention from Salem adds a durable layer to what Mowe has spent 15 years building at the corner of downtown Baker City.