North Bend bakery owners Steve and Georgia Teodosiadis received King County’s John D. Spellman award for Historic Preservation last Thursday, for the restoration of Georgia’s Bakery.

Steve Teodosiadis is grateful for the recognition his business has received.

“It was great, it was was a big deal for me,” he said. “I’m really happy with the way it turned out and I’m glad it got the recognition among some other big projects.”

Teodosiadis thanked the county, the city and 4Culture for their support as he went through the process of restoring the bakery to its original form.

Common knowledge had it that in the 1970s, city officials and business owners wanted to market North Bend like Leavenworth, known for its Bavarian look, by giving many of the buildings a European facade.

North Bend Mayor Ken Hearing, who spoke at the Spellman Award ceremony at the North Bend Theater last week, referred to it as “Leavenworth 2.0.”

According to Teodosiadis, in the 1990s the city wanted to change that direction and the facades on the buildings were slowly removed and replaced with the original historic facades.

The bakery was the last building in North Bend to still have the old facade up, he said.

In 2014, Teodosiadis received a 4Culture grant to help fund a restoration of the building, removing the old exterior and returning the bakery to its original design. Construction began in January of 2015 and was finished after a month.

“It was a lot of fun, very rewarding, and a lot of people helped out,” Teodosiadis said.

“To me it was the right thing to do and I hope everyone likes it.”