Is Mrs. Joy's Absolut… Still Open? Project Bakeover Update (Lynchburg, VA)

What happened after Project Bakeover?

Mrs. Joy's Absolutely Fabulous Treats, a downtown Lynchburg, Virginia, bakery owned by Tarsha Joyner, opened the first season of Project Bakeover (Food Network Canada). Its episode, "The Key Ingredient is Trust," aired 2021-02-04. According to Wikipedia's episode list, the series pairs pastry chef and chocolatier Steve Hodge with designer Tiffany Pratt to rework the menus and interiors of bakeries that need help, and the list credits Hodge's items for this episode as a salted caramel truffle, a craquelin and a mousse. WSLS 10 confirmed in a profile published 2022-03-31 that Joyner appeared in the first episode of the series, but that article did not describe what was changed in the shop, and no source read for this entry described the new decor or the relaunch in detail.

The shop's history before the cameras comes from local outlets. WSLS 10 reported on 2022-03-31 that Joyner opened the business in July 2012, selling at a farmers market after the idea began as a college branding assignment, and that prize money from a 2015 Food Network Christmas Cookie Challenge win went toward her downtown storefront. Lynchburg Living (Scott Wilson, 2020-05-01) described the Commerce Street shop, in a former hardware store building, as employing a team of six and selling cinnamon rolls, donuts, shortbread, cake pops and brownies. WSET (ABC 13) reported on 2019-06-25 that the bakery planned to leave Commerce Street for Mechanicsville in late August of that year. Lynchburg Living wrote that a shopping-center lease for the move fell through and that the shop reopened in January 2020, and WSET reported on 2020-01-17 that Joyner had decided to stay downtown.

After the episode, WSLS 10 (Tim Harfmann, 2022-06-27) reported that Joyner said sales were down about 30 percent from a year earlier and that the cost of ingredients such as cream cheese, chocolate and sugar had climbed sharply. She told the station, "If things don't get better, then that will be it," and WSLS wrote that she might have to close by the end of summer 2022 if conditions did not improve.

Later evidence is limited. The lynchburgvirginia.org page "The Great Lynchburg Bakeoff," first dated 2022-02-08 and showing a 2026-03-30 revision in its page metadata, lists the shop on Commerce Street in downtown Lynchburg and names Project Bakeover among Joyner's Food Network appearances. A Google Places record retrieved 2026-10-19 gave the address as 1008B Commerce St and listed the business as operational.

The shop's own website, mrsjoys.com, carried a notice dated 2026-06-05 that the site was under construction. The page gave 1008B Commerce Street in Lynchburg as the address and a phone number, and sent visitors to the shop's Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Linktree pages for current offerings and scheduled events. Its online store at mrsjoys.company.site, checked 2026-10-19, listed 1008 Commerce Street, Suite B, with Wednesday-to-Saturday hours, two cookie classes on 2026-03-06 and 2026-03-07, and a fundraiser the page describes as aimed at saving the shop. Neither page announced a closure or a move.