Joanne Nichols

Joanne Nichols, part owner of The Arbor Inn Bakery, is a professional cake baker and designer who has been baking cakes for nearly 30 years.

Joanne has owned and operated several companies over her career starting nearly 20 years ago with a specialty cake company, Cake Occasions, where she designed and baked spectacular cakes for all occasions out of her home in Rye, NH.

After several years, she took on a partner and formed a corporation, Culinary Indulgence which included a catering business, fine dining restaurant and baking company first in Portsmouth, NH then in Kennebunk, Maine. Joanne and her partner eventually sold that business when she opened The Chatterbox Cafe in Kennebunkport, Maine offering fine pastry, specialty and wedding cakes and off premise catering.

Over the years, Joanne has won numerous awards for her baking recipes and designs starting with the New Hampshire 4-H competition which, at the age of 11, she won Best of Show for a Butterfly Cake.

Other awards have include:

1. 2008 National Championship for the Best Pancakes in the Country
2. Best of New Hampshire award for having the best scones in the state
3. Best of Show for the Chocolate Lover's Professional Competition and the People's Choice Award hosted by the Muscular Dystrophy organization;
4. Best of Show for the Professional Gingerbread House Contest held in North Conway New Hampshire
5. Portsmouth Herald's Best of Show for Chocolate Mousse Torte
6. Best of show for Beer Battered Coconut Shrimp dish
7. Chocolate Lover's Award for Best chocolate presentation held in Haverhill, Massachusetts
8. People's Choice award for Best Bed and Breakfast & Culinary excellence