Camellia City Bakery & Deli has reopened at a new location on East Commerce Street.

And despite the new address, the quality food and service that have become staples for the past two and a half years remain unchanged.

Owners Ozzie and Ann Judah said that their previous establishment served them well, and created some fond memories, the new location offers a number of advantages that were too good to pass up.

A front-street location means more exposure, and a significantly larger number of parking spaces means more potential customers.

But the most important benefit lies within the new establishment.

“Up there, we had room enough just to squeeze three tables in, and here we’ve got room to spread out and people can have more private conversations,” said Ann.

“Although we don’t want to lose our homey-ness of everyone coming in and talking with us, it was cramped down there, too. Fort Dale (Academy) kids would come in and they were willing to sit on icing buckets just to be able to sit at a table.”

Those improvised bucket seats won’t be necessary at the new location, wherein more than double the number of tables from the previous establishment are available.

In addition to the regular seating space is a new banquet room that can comfortably seat 60-65 people. The Judahs are looking to make it available for rent to Greenville residents at any time for private meetings, organizational meetings, Christmas parties and more.

For the couple, it’s just an additional way of giving back to the community that has given so much to the bakery.

“It will be called the Camellia Room, and it would be open to accommodate any type of private event that you would like to have — baby showers, birthday parties … we can even accommodate a good-sized rehearsal dinner or wedding reception,” Ann said.

“So that’s going to be what we were hoping to be a plus to the city.”

The bakery also plans to offer all customers Wi-Fi.

But according to Ann, the bakery’s recent amenities are just payment in kind to the Greenville community.

With nearly 700 likes on the bakery’s Facebook page, the Camellia City Bakery has been kept aloft by a continuous stream of customers since the very first baked good was served two and a half years ago.

“Community support has been everything to us,” Ann said.

“The members of the Greenville community have, from the moment we moved to this town, opened their arms to us.  They embraced us, brought us into the community, and they have encouraged us and offered us help.”

And although there are certainly some things that she’ll miss from her previous location, including next-door neighbor Ms. Shirley, Ann is looking forward to the future instead of dwelling on the past.

“It was a quant spot, and it was a beginning, so you’ll always miss the spot where you started up,” she said. “But it’s one of those things where we don’t want to look back.  We just want to look forward and see what the next thing that God wants us to do.”