Margaret Shofner makes room on a rack for new spring clothing at her home women’s clothing store, California Charmer Girl, on Monday, March 4, 2024, in Oroville, California. (Kyra Gottesman/Mercury-Register)
You might not think beautiful women’s clothing and great baked goods have much in common, but for Margaret Shoffner, they’re the perfect recipe for two successful country businesses she runs from her Oroville home.
“I like to make people happy,” Shofner said. “And nice clothes and homemade baked goods do that.”
Shofner has been disabled for 46 years after an accident “crushed” both of her legs between two cars, leaving her so badly injured that she was told both her limbs would have to be amputated.
“Eventually the doctors were able to put me back together,” she recalls. “They reconstructed my legs. I’ve had muscle transplants, bone grafts, skin grafts and have artificial knees and hips.”
After the recovery, it was eight months before she started learning to walk again, but she said: “I never let it get me down. I still don’t. I’m just going.
And she does, visiting her kitchen around 4 a.m. four to five days a week and working until late afternoon, baking everything from dessert breads to fruit pies and cakes to candies, including creams and “pucks” that are covered in chocolate Oreos or small candy-coated cakes that look like hockey pucks. She also bakes cornbread, cupcakes and cookies and offers many sugar-free and gluten-free products. All of these treats are sold through Maggie’s Sweets, her bakery business.
Everything Shofner makes for Maggie’s Sweets, including special orders, is made with organic ingredients, and when a recipe calls for eggs, she goes back to her coop to pick up fresh organic ones.
“No boxes, no cans, no added preservatives,” she said. “The better the eggs, the better the taste.”
As a child, Shoffner loved to bake, especially “fancy Christmas cookies,” so when she was 16 and had the opportunity to take some baking classes at the Wilton Baking School in Saratoga, near her home in the Santa Cruz Mountains, she did. She also sewed and between making clothes and baking she managed to earn some pocket money throughout high school.
While baking was Shoffner’s first love, Maggie’s Sweets grew out of California Charmer Girl, a women’s clothing business Shoffner opened in 2002 and continues to operate.
The entrepreneur was living in Maghlia at the time and had a job hosting foreign students in homes when someone told her that “you have to sell things. You need your own business.”
“I thought, ‘what the hell,’ and I started selling Italian charm bracelets,” Shofner said.
Expanding into womenswear just seemed like the next right step, so Shofner added dresses, pants, jeans, tops, boots, sandals and bags to her offerings and began selling at local fairs and festivals, including Feather Fiesta Days, Salmon Festival, Johnny Appleseed Days, Red Suspenders Days and the Arbor Day Festival, as well as the Oroville Farmers Markets.
For a few years she had a shop downtown, but found that the events were both more profitable and more fun, so she moved her shop into two custom buildings behind her home. Customers now shop her private stores, which offer a variety of styles in sizes from 12 months to 4X with nothing priced over $40, by appointment.
“I love coordinating outfits for people,” Shofner said. “When I had the store in town, I had women come in in slippers and pajamas and say, ‘OK, dress me for work.’ Now people shop at my home store and they really like the personal service.”
When she sold at the various festivals, Shofner brought baked goods to share with other vendors, who liked them so much they encouraged her to open a bakery, and thus, she said, Maggie’s Sweets in 2021 was born.
“I have customers, both clothing and bakery, that have been with me since day one,” Shofner said. “They follow me to various fairs, festivals and markets. Love it. I really enjoy talking and joking with them. And it feels good to see how happy the clothes and what I bake make them.”
Shofner posts her clothing, baked goods and schedule, as well as her phone number, on her Maggie’s Sweets and California Charmer Girl Facebook pages so customers can see products offered by both the business and upcoming events she will visits as well as contact information to make an appointment or special order.
