{"id":16013,"date":"2025-03-07T20:52:27","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T20:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/?p=16013"},"modified":"2025-03-07T20:52:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T20:52:27","slug":"a-moment-in-durham-its-24-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/2025\/03\/07\/a-moment-in-durham-its-24-7\/","title":{"rendered":"A moment in Durham: ‘It’s 24-7’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charlie Armitage, 23, pulled her car up on Wannamaker Drive at Duke University on a breezy Tuesday night. A pale pink, green and blue rosary banged against the dashboard with each turn. \u201c6:25, so we\u2019re perfect. Right on time,\u201d she said, glancing at her watch. \u201cOh my gosh, I think this is her!\u201d She turned on her hazards and hopped out of the car, grinning from ear to ear. \u201cHey, would you happen to be Alex?\u201d she called out to the young woman waiting on a bench outside of Keohane dorm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Armitage is one of two owners, managers, delivery drivers, bakers, and everything-in-betweeners of Ollie\u2019s Great Bakery. Her black Nissan Kick is her home for six hours every day, as she drives from Duke University to UNC-Chapel Hill to North Carolina State University delivering fresh-baked brownies, cupcakes, cookie cakes, and \u201cOllie\u2019s delights\u201d (brownies with marshmallows, chocolate peanut butter crunch, and peanut butter drizzle) to students, who are the bulk of her customer base.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With the back seat of the car down, there was plenty of room for the evening\u2019s deliveries. Armitage grabbed a box of blue and white frosted cupcakes from the trunk. \u201cHappy Anniversary\u201d toppers were carefully placed on each cupcake. The box sat beside a butterfly-patterned \u201cHappy Anniversary\u201d balloon with a silver tinsel balloon weight. Alex walked back toward her dorm smiling, six cupcakes richer, with the balloon floating in the sky behind her.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Ollie's
Armitage’s baked goods rely on eggs from her farm’s chickens. Photo by Fiona Shuldiner \u2014 The 9th Street Journal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Armitage launched Ollie\u2019s Great Bakery in 2021 with her high school sweetheart and now-fianc\u00e9 Camryn Kellogg, 25. They were both students at UNC at the time. Armitage had transferred from Durham Technical Community College, and Kellogg was a Morehead-Cain scholar.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ollie\u2019s is named after Kellogg\u2019s late great-grandmother, who taught him how to bake as a kid. She passed away from COVID when she was 97.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were on a walk, and we were like, \u2018We want to do something that gives back in a way, as Italians, as people who love food, and in honor of her,\u2019\u201d said Armitage. \u201cWe were like, \u2018We\u2019re gonna start baking for family and friends and see how it goes.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now Ollie\u2019s employs both of them full-time. \u201cIt\u2019s 24\/7.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ollie\u2019s advertises that it brings a \u201ctaste of home\u201d to students, friends, and family. Every bakery item is homemade in the pair\u2019s kitchen in Mebane, N.C. They live surrounded by farmland, with only one neighboring home. \u201cThere\u2019s not much in Mebane,\u201d Armitage said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The secret to Ollies\u2019 mouth-watering brownies that is only possible in rural Mebane? Chickens.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have 20-something, maybe 30 chickens.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Armitage and Kellogg consider themselves chicken-raising experts now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a whole science,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cEventually we got a whole incubator. I have videos of them hatching, we went through two different periods of raising them from eggs, watching them. You have to flip them every couple hours for months.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet Armitage insists this work is worth it.\u00a0 \u201cHave you ever had an egg from a chicken farm fresh? They\u2019re so much better. They\u2019re this rich orange color, they\u2019re not neon yellow, and they taste so much richer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Armitage said her secret charm is to make sure she\u2019s in a good mood before she goes to work. Yet while she is dedicated to uplifting others, she hasn\u2019t always had a strong support system. Her parents struggled with substance abuse, and she moved out of her childhood home in Wilmington as soon as she turned 18, graduating from high school in December of her senior year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI stayed with friends, I was in social services for a while, and then I moved in with Cam in Chapel Hill.\u201d Armitage said she has been embraced by the Kellogg family, who she has known since her freshman year of high school.<\/span><\/p>\n

As she arrived at the final delivery of the night, she explained that she loves people and wants her customers to have an enjoyable experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it puts me in a better mood and gets me through the hard times by being positive for other people,\u201d she said. \u201cYou feed off of people\u2019s energy, so if you can bring that positive energy it can make you feel happier too.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Above: Charlie Armitage, making the delivery rounds for Ollie’s Great Bakery. Photo by Fiona Shuldiner \u2014 The 9th Street Journal\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charlie Armitage, 23, pulled her car up on Wannamaker Drive at Duke University on a breezy Tuesday night. 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