French bakery to open in Downtown Johnson City

Cecile Hine and Mark Winters are bringing a piece of France to downtown Johnson City. Owners of The French Honeybee Pâtisserie, the new bakery will be housed at 320 E. Main St., currently Hunter's Hearth Pottery. Winters said the shop will contain an assortment of authentic French pastries and baked goods, bringing a new cultural aspect to the downtown area. "We're going to be a premium bakery," Winters said. "This is going to be quality over quantity, and we're going to tell people to come early because we expect to sell out before advertised closing hours based on what we've seen with demand before." Winters said some of the signature items will be "lamenated dough," where multiple layers of dough are folded on top of one another to create a deeper flavor and flaky, crispy layers. Classic butter croissants, pains au chocolat (chocolate croissants), eclairs, cannelés and madeleines will all be on the menu, along with homemade baguettes and brioche breads. Authenticity of each item, Winters said, is an important aspect to him and his wife because of her background. Hine was born and raised in Paris and knows the ins and outs of the traditional French bakery products. "She lived in Paris until her 20s and she got her master's degree in food engineering in France," Winters said. "She moved out of Paris but stayed in France through her 30s." After visiting the U.S. and staying in California for a month, Winters said Hine fell in love with the country and decided to get a visa to live in the states. Hine moved to Florida, living there for a time before she moved to Tennessee to marry Winters. Winters said once Hine began cooking the French pastries for him, he encouraged her to share her talent with others by branching out into the Elizabethon and Jonesborough farmer's markets in May 2025. Because of her food's popularity, by July, she and Winters began to plan opening their own business. "She was doing these two farmer's markets and getting requests for catering, and they're like, 'Where's your bakery?' and she's like, 'I don't have a bakery, this is from home,'" Winters said. "Based on the demand and how much she was enjoying doing it, we were sitting one day at the house on the couch one day and I was like, 'We can do something with this, there's nothing like this around.'" Despite their main followings in Jonesborough and Elizabethton, Winters said choosing a central location within the Tri-Cities was important, thus downtown Johnson City became a top pick based on its business environment and how it connects to true French bakeries. "In Paris, the best pastry shops – they're called pâtisseries – are downtown," Winters said. "The country has good ones, but the best ones are downtown. We like the foot traffic over a parking lot or drive-thru window, or something like that. More personable and community-oriented, which is one of our main values. Community over corporation." The business will also have a "pickup and go" model, Winters said, with no seating or dining areas like a restaurant, but rather a walk in and out experience. "It's not a restaurant, it's not a cafe," Winters said. "We want to focus on the food and the quality of the food. People will come in, they'll get in line, they'll get their pastries and they'll go." While there is no set opening date yet, Winters said he and Hine hope to be open "as early as possible" in the spring and will begin buildout on their bakery space after their occupancy date, March 1. Winters said coming to downtown Johnson City, especially being housed on Main Street, is something he and his wife are eager for, hoping to impact the growth of the area and create a deeper cultural understanding for each customer who will walk through their door. "There's a lot of fine places to go to get food in Johnson City and downtown, but we think the French bakery idea here is going to stoke some emotional responses that nothing else does," Winters said. "People that have never been to France will be able to get a little taste of it."