The most beloved up-Island spot for wood-fired pizza, and the only place in Aquinnah where locals could stop at any hour of the day or night for a snack and drink, Orange Peel Bakery on State Road in Aquinnah, has permanently closed amid a lawsuit and bankruptcy filing.
Juli Vanderhoop, owner of the bakery, said she will be back with “something a little different, but still with the same energy.”
“What I was doing was sustaining the community, where there is no sustenance most of the year in Aquinnah,” she said. “I can’t tell you how many people have reached out to me to say how stunned they are, or how upset they are about this … Right now it’s the fishing Derby, and I can’t tell you how many of those fishermen come in between 10 pm and 2 in the morning to grab something, something warm or sweet to keep them going out there.”
“We will rise and come back with more creativity, because of the outreach and the energy that’s being put in right now,” she added.
The backdrop for the bankruptcy declaration is a lawsuit involving two bakers from New York who worked there from May through September in 2023.
They are seeking a $95,000 settlement that Vanderhoop initially agreed to pay the two former seasonal bakers through a seven-month settlement plan, and now the former employees are suing her for unpaid wages, overtime, and tips. Vanderhoop’s attorney, Eugene Johnson of Vineyard Haven, says she couldn’t financially swing the months-long plan, and after they couldn’t agree on a counteroffer, Vanderhoop filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, dissolving her business and potentially discharging her debt, but that means that the Orange Peel Bakery will never open again.
To Vanderhoop and the local community, the bakery was never just a shop.
“I wanted people to understand the kinder way of doing business. I put the spirit of my people into that business, because when you are an indigenous person, you take care of the community,” said Vanderhoop. “We will all miss it. I never expected people to receive the bakery like it had been received.”
What was so unique about the Orange Peel is that it was open all hours of the day and night, regardless if someone was there to help customers. The bakery operated on an honor system, where people like local fishermen looking for a snack in the early morning could stop and leave cash, or Venmo the bakery, for whatever they purchased.
Vanderhoop said she is off-Island while the dust settles, and that she is going to spend time with her 95-year-old mother. She said Orange Peel Bakery closed after 20 years and two weeks, and she is going to take a break.
“This could happen to any business on the Island,” Vanderhoop said. She blamed the end of this chapter on “two employees with more greed than anything else.”
In the U.S. District Court at John J. Moakley U.S. Courthouse, on Nov. 5, 2025, Vanderhoop agreed to pay the two bakers over a seven-month period.
According to court documents, the former bakers said Vanderhoop settled in court with no intention of paying, then filed for bankruptcy to get out of debt. Vanderhoop’s attorney, Johnson, said Vanderhoop agreed she owed them for late wages, tried to pay over five years after the seven-month schedule proved to be financially impossible, and converted to Chapter 7 bankruptcy after a trustee said that repayment plan wasn’t feasible either.
The plaintiffs, Claire Depasquale and Christopher Mueller, both New York residents, worked at the bakery through the 2023 season. In January 2024, they sued Vanderhoop and Orange Peel Bakery in the district court in Boston. According to court documents, Depasquale and Mueller worked at the bakery from May 20 through Sept. 23 in 2023. They said they were promised $2,200 every two weeks, but said wages arrived late or not at all, that they regularly worked 45 to 60 hours a week, and were never paid time-and-a-half, and Venmo tips left for them were never turned over.
“The Defendant failed to pay the Plaintiffs all earned wages, overtime, and tips,” the plaintiffs’ complaint, submitted to the district court in January 2024 by their attorney Matthew Patton, said. Attorneys representing Depasquale and Mueller from the Law Office of Nicholas F. Ortiz, P.C., and Ortiz & Moeslinger, P.C., were not immediately available for comment.
Johnson refuted this, and said Depasquale and Mueller were on salaries and not hourly workers, and they were paid more than the $2,200 every two weeks they cited in their complaint. According to pay stubs shared with The Times by Johnson, Depasquale made $2,400 every two weeks, and Mueller made $3,000, before taxes. Regarding the tips on Venmo, Johnson said, Venmo spreadsheets didn’t show a single tip in Depasquale or Mueller’s names, and said the Venmo tips are usually left to support the bakery when customers help themselves. Regarding pizza-night tips, in Johnson’s Sept. 10, 2026, answer in the bankruptcy adversary case, he wrote that Depasquale and Mueller “were fully aware that a designated co-worker counted the tips in front of all of the workers and distributed the tip money to the employees at the end of the night,” and that Vanderhoop “did not participate in the counting and distribution of the tips.”
An Aug. 17 complaint submitted by Depasquale and Mueller that objected to the discharge of Vanderhoop’s debts following her filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy said Vanderhoop agreed to the settlement with no intention of paying it “solely to avoid trial and impending judgment.”
“The court should refuse to allow a discharge of the debt,” the complaint said.
Johnson said, in the Sept. 10 document responding to the bakers’ objection to Vanderhoop’s debt discharge, that Vanderhoop fully intended to pay the debt, but after meeting with her accountant to arrange payments, it was determined the payment schedule could not be met. Johnson said they filed a Chapter 13 petition seeking to change the payment plan from 12 payments to 60 equal payments over five years, but the trustee who reviewed the plan said it was not feasible. Johnson said the trustee’s decision was due to the seasonal dependency of her business; she ultimately filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
“If debtor/defendant’s [Vanderhoop] plan was to file for bankruptcy prior to the settlement agreement, she would have done so prior to the pretrial conference on Nov. 5, 2025,” said Johnson in his Sept. 10 document.
In an interview with The Times, Johnson said they never disputed that Vanderhooop was late with the two bakers’ pay, and the law requires employers to pay on time. Johnson said Vanderhoop was willing to pay for falling behind with the plaintiffs’ paychecks, but the other claims, where Depasquale and Mueller say they were hourly workers and were owed overtime, that Vanderhoop withheld Venmo tips from them, and that she kept pizza-night tips, are false, Johnson said.
“Had they not added those false allegations, the matter would have been settled,” Johnson said in an interview with The Times. “[Vanderhoop] learned something, and she’s willing to pay for that, but she’s not going to pay for those false allegations.”
There is no schedule for an upcoming hearing based on the plaintiffs’ complaint and Johnson’s response.
This article is wrong in so many ways. It almost states that the greedy business owner is somehow the victim. In court she acknowledged that she owed the employees the money and then is now trying to use the bankruptcy laws in order to keep the money. Her lawyer saying that the bakers were salaried employees is laughable. You cannot pay a baker as if they are Executive roles (managing a department, hiring/firing input).
or Administrative roles (office/non-manual work exercising independent judgment).
or Professional roles (advanced specialized education like law or medicine). Her attorney must have skipped class when these roles were defined.
Well, that stinks. Thank you Julie for everything you and this bakery have meant to the community. We appreciate you.