Le Moulin de Provence baked up a treat ahead of the
Jonas Brothers concert
at the Canadian Tire Centre on Monday night.
Instead of its usual iconic political cookies, the bakery whipped up batches of red, maple leaf-shaped sugar cookies with the names of the three brothers written in the centre.
“It’s not often we get big celebrities coming to Ottawa,” said Nicholas Bonnet, director of sales and marketing. “And the fans are, no pun intended, eating it up.”
Nicholas and Chloe Bonnet posted the cookies to social media on Dec. 12. One of the posts garnered over 25,000 likes and hundreds of thousands of views. It poked fun at Joe Jonas’ parallel parking — referencing a viral video of him struggling to do so in New York a week ago — and pretended to reserve him a spot outside the shop.
“It was really funny,” said Emily Town, a self-declared superfan.
That’s how she found out Le Moulin de Provence were selling these limited-edition cookies. Together with her friend Samantha Lupinacci, they split a “Joe” cookie, breaking off consecutively smaller pieces until only crumbs were left.
Town and Lupinacci booked off work to soak up most of the Jonas Brothers’ visit to their hometown. They made sure to secure front row tickets as soon as sales dropped, too.
“It’s the boy band culture, right? Like, once you get into it there is no getting out of it,” Lupinacci said. “It’s like a cult…in the good way.”
The pair of friends are lifelong fans, and both made it to the last Jonas Brothers concert in 2023. To Town, it’s a “no-brainer” to go again.
Ana Lustosa, also a self-declared superfan, flew in from Edmonton, Alberta, to see the concert in Ottawa. She happened to bump into Town and Lupinacci, who she had never met before, at Le Moulin de Provence.
“You can kind of just tell who’s a fan and who’s not,” Lustosa said.
After tonight, she’s making her way to Montreal to see them for the third time before returning home. Lustosa said she’s banking this year’s vacation time with some of next year’s to see them, adding it’s worth it given no one knows when they’ll perform in Canada again.
“It’s complicated to go to the United States and more expensive in other countries,” she said.
With Jonas Brothers’ music reverberating through the speakers of the bakery, Chloe said they’ve sold more than 200 sugar cookies and are on their last batch today. She can recognize the customers who’ve made the trek to ByWard Market to get a taste, she added.
As for a long-shot message to Joe Jonas and the brothers if they show up: “Use the parking lot across the street,” Nicholas said.
