Behind the counter of State Fountain Bakery, Emily Tibbs moves quickly, greeting a steady stream of Mississippi State University students and faculty as they file in and out of the bakery’s storefront Friday morning in Perry Food Hall.
From the glass case beside her, she pulls and packages donuts, lemon squares, cheesecake slices and jalapeno cheddar kolaches, each one baked before dawn by Angel Jennings, and passes them across the counter to a line that seemingly never stops forming.
After more than a year of closure during Perry’s $30 million renovation, the 104-year-old bakery reopened in August in its original home on the dining hall’s first floor. Jennings, who has baked and decorated there for nearly 30 years, said she and longtime customers are thrilled to see it back where it began.
“A lot of alumni have come back and new faces and students,” Jennings said, smiling. “I’m just happy. I missed it.”
Founded in about 1922, State Fountain Bakery first served students from a small corner of Perry Cafeteria. Over the decades, it moved twice to Colvard Student Union as the dining hall changed, first temporarily during renovations in the 1990s, and again in 2015, this time for nearly a decade, to make room for newer eateries.
Through it all, the bakery’s kitchen never left Perry’s lower level, continuing to turn out cakes, pies and cookies while the storefront shifted.
When the university began its $30 million overhaul of Perry in May 2024, transforming it from an all-you-can-eat cafeteria into a modern food hall, campus leaders saw an opportunity to bring the bakery back home.
“I think there’s a lot of nostalgia about the bakery,” said Regina Hyatt, vice president for student affairs. “… When we decided that we were going to do the major renovation … at Perry, it just seemed like the right time to bring it back to a place that was its original home and have a storefront that was also in keeping with the nostalgia.”
Sticking to tradition
The new storefront is framed by brown brick walls, while behind the counter, maroon and white tiles spell out the bakery’s name in bold block letters. Students sit on wooden stools facing a marble counter lined with cookie jars while gold lamps hang overhead.
Behind the scenes, kitchen appliances were replaced and the menu expanded to include soups, salads and sandwiches alongside decades-old recipes.
“We try to keep it pretty much the same,” Jennings said. “We do new items of course, but we try to stay with tradition while bringing in new stuff.”
About 250 people visit the bakery daily. Jennings starts work at about 3 a.m. each morning, turning out pastries with a small team.
Some, like the bakery’s fruity pebble donuts, are newer, while some have followed the same recipes since the 1920s, like chocolate cream pies, caramel cakes and the bakery’s signature dog bone cookies.
“We haven’t messed with the recipes,” Jennings said. “They’re still the originals.”
Hyatt said faithfulness to tradition is what makes State Fountain Bakery a signature part of MSU.
“This is a place that I think has a lot of traditions, and I think that it’s cool that the bakery is part of that tradition, and I love that we can keep up with that,” Hyatt said. “… (Jennings) has been preparing these same recipes for years and years and years, and the baker before her did the same thing.
“I think that’s pretty cool to have those recipes continue on and pass down from generation to generation,” Hyatt added. “A lot of things here are special like that, but I think it’s cool that the bakery is a part of that.”
Andi Pichardo, marketing manager for Aramark, the university’s food service provider, said she’s just glad people can once again line up at the bakery each morning for breakfast.
“We’re just really excited that we have it again after a year of missing it,” she said. “I think the students and faculty and staff are excited as well. They can come and get their apple fritters for breakfast. … And we get to show it off as well.”
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