 Well, Naughty Pine Bakery has been named the winner of the 2018 Destination Downtown Contest in Brainerd. The winner of the second annual competition was announced at tonight's Brainerd Lakes Chamber Celebration of Excellence. The Destination Downtown Contest is a business competition that was launched in 2017 that awards a prize package worth $50,000 to a hopeful new downtown business owner. 73 contestants entered their business idea when the contest was announced earlier this summer. The entrance were narrowed down in October to a final three, Naughty Pine Bakery, Salvador Sam's Cook Shanti, and Blue Paisley Boatier. It's a business concept and we also look at the person. So the concept has to be something that the judges really believe can be successful in the downtown area, but we also look at the entrepreneur and the success that they could bring, the skills that they could bring into their business. When you combine the two of those, you get a winner and tonight it was Marie Kersh. Marie Kersh had the idea for Naughty Pine Bakery and wanted to bring a homemade baked goods to downtown Brainerd. She uses locally sourced and sustainably raised ingredients in her products. Kersh has previously been working out of her kitchen and selling at local farmers' markets. Her bakery is slated to open this summer. It's just an amazing experience. I am so excited to get started on it after having dreamed about this and started it out of my home kitchen North Brainerd. It's just going to be awesome to have a storefront bakery finally right in downtown. So really looking forward to it. With the help of local businesses, the Brainerd Lakes Chamber hopes to continue the competition next year. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.