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A South Side community has rallied behind Brown Sugar Bakery, a beloved fixture of East 75th Street in the Park Manor neighborhood, after a car crashed into the bakery early Sunday.

Community members quickly helped owner Stephanie Hart board up the store and cart away debris and within hours the bakery was open for business. By Tuesday, Hart’s team was back to baking.

“What we thought was going to be really terrible gave us a really warm feeling,” Hart said.

A car crashed into the front of the building around 6 a.m. Sunday before the driver fled, Chicago police said in a statement. No injuries were reported, no one was in custody and police were investigating.

Hart said a bakery employee discovered the damage when she got to work at the bakery, at 328 E. 75th St., around 6 a.m. The worker usually starts her shift around 3 a.m., but started late on Sunday because she worked on her usual day off the day before. She would’ve been working less than 4 feet from where the car hit the building. Hart is glad she wasn’t.

After she got to work Sunday, Hart said, strangers driving down 75th Street started offering their help. A man stopped by and called his cousin, who arrived with boards to help close up the bakery. Another man who stopped by in a truck helped clear up the debris left in the street.

“I didn’t even know these people,” she said. “That was the beauty of it.”

The man in the truck wouldn’t take any money for his help, Hart said. She sent him away with cake and candy.

The crash damaged a walk-in freezer used to freeze cakes for shipping, which Hart was only able to secure last December because of supply chain issues. The freezer itself is worth about $20,000, but Hart said she has insurance.

And she’s seeing the silver linings. “Had this happened in the beginning of December, that car would’ve landed smack dab in the middle of my business and probably caused immeasurable damage,” she said.

More than anything, Hart said, she’s thankful no one was in the bakery at the time of the crash.

“I would’ve been angry in March of 2019,” Hart said. “After March of 2020, I don’t have that kind of emotion for something that can be fixed.”

So many restaurants have been forced to close during the pandemic, Hart added. “I’m still here.”

Hart founded Brown Sugar Bakery in the early 2000s, and has been at the 75th Street location since 2007. Last August, Hart purchased the building. She opened up a location at Navy Pier in 2016.

The bakery found itself in the national spotlight last year, when Vice President Kamala Harris visited while on a trip promoting COVID-19 vaccinations in Chicago. Her staff ordered her a slice of German chocolate cake. Earlier in the year, Hart made an appearance on “Good Morning America,” where she won a surprise $10,000 grant from Verizon and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation.

An installation from the Art Institute, representing the museum’s Egypt exhibit, was also damaged in the crash, right at the point of impact. The Art Institute has reached out, Hart said, and they’re prepping the wall to put the exhibit back up.

The bakery lost some product in the crash, Hart said. For now, she’s storing cakes for delivery in the Cupid Candies factory on 76th Street and Western Avenue, which she bought in 2020. With an Easter rush approaching, she’s looking at ways to keep her production up to speed. One of her suppliers has offered extra freezer space, she said.

Hart said she also received messages of support from the city of Chicago and the governor. The other businesses on 75th Street reached out, too. Friends drove up on Sunday just to hug her.

Hart said she’s praying for whomever was in the car that hit her bakery. “I hope they’re OK,” she said. “I really, really do.”

“I think that it shows an evolution of humanity,” Hart said of the support the bakery has received over the last couple of days. “I think that people are just hyperaware, more aware especially because of COVID, that people, businesses are fragile, and we shouldn’t take any part of our ecosystem for granted.

“I’m honored,” Hart said. “I really am.”