Retired WNBA player Jenny Mowe now runs the best brunch spot in Baker City –

On the basketball court, Jenny Mowe was a fearsome sight.

“With her long frame and big hands, Mowe was a terror in Class 1A,” The Oregonian wrote in 2017 when it ranked her No. 21 in a list of the top 25 Oregon girls high school basketball players of all time.

But in the kitchen, Mowe is a friendly sweetheart. And that’s likely where you’ll find her these days, working at Sweet Wife Baking, her pastry shop and restaurant in downtown Baker City.

Sweet Wife has always been about subverting expectations for the 6-foot-5-inch former basketball star who played in the WNBA.

“It’s the polar opposite of what you would expect,” Mowe said. “This tall, muscular aggressive basketball player, and now I’m literally getting excited about sprinkles.”

Anyone who visits Sweet Wife will be excited by what Mowe does with sprinkles, too. The bakery and brunch spot, which serves hot breakfasts and craft cocktails, is part of the eastern Oregon town’s bustling food and shopping scene. Mowe and her team scratch-bake everything, from biscuits and gravy to their must-try pecan cinnamon sticky buns.

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Mowe grew up in tiny Powers, Oregon – population just under 700 – in Coos County. As a basketball player, she led the Powers High School Cruisers to the Class 1A title in 1995 and graduated with 14 state tournament records. She went on to play at the University of Oregon, where she averaged 8.8 points, 5.6 rebounds and finished No. 2 on the school’s all-time list for field-goal percentage.

Mowe was the first Duck drafted in the WNBA. She was selected in the second round by the Portland Fire in 2001, where she played until the team was disbanded in 2003. She played two more seasons in China and South Korea before retiring from basketball.

In 2007, she and her husband, Loran Joseph, moved to Baker City. It was a chance to be closer to Joseph’s family and adopt a slower place of life.

It turned out to be a tad too slow for Mowe, who started her baking business in 2010.

Mowe said she always had a sweet tooth and got her start baking with her mom and grandmother as a kid.

“Then I moved out here, and my mother-in-law was doing everything from scratch, milking her own cow and making her own cheese and bread,” Mowe said. “That really inspired me to start making stuff from scratch and looking at how things are made.”

Sweet Wife started selling cakes and pastries wholesale to local restaurants from a leased space in Baker Tower. By 2015, Mowe had moved the business into a larger restaurant space.

In 2019, she and Joseph purchased the 1890-built Lynndale building on Main Street. The historic building had been an old dive bar with a dropped ceiling and dark interior. Over two years, they completely renovated it, pulling out seven…