Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicolle Scott.
Nicolle, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started my business in 2016, baking from home at 19 years old. I always knew that I wanted to have a bakery because I didn’t want to work for someone else. When I went first became vegan in high school there were pretty much no vegan options(or at least any good ones) at the time so I took it upon myself to fill the void in the industry. A lot of people told me that opening a vegan bakery was a stupid idea and it was just a trend that would die out but there was an extreme boom between the years of 2017-2019. When I started doing pop-ups I was one of the only dessert vendors so I was doing pretty well, lol. I was still working for Disney but because I was getting more popular with doing events and custom orders, I decided to quit my job and open a storefront. I ended up leaving Disney in June of 2018 and I signed the lease on my bakery in July of 2018 at 22 years old. Over the course of the last five years (we’ve only been open 3 but signed the lease five years ago) there has been endless help from friends and family- my mom would run deliveries, my husband would help bake and run the register, my dad would go with me to pop-ups, my friends have all worked for me at some point. Everyone was fully involved in every second of this and if it wasn’t for all the help I’ve had over the years, I probably wouldn’t be where I am right now. The last year or so has been a financial struggle so my husband and I had to run the whole place with little to no paycheck for ourselves in order to try and stay open post-pandemic which led to some super difficult decisions I had to make.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
When I signed my lease I was under the impression that the space was move-in ready, I had even gone down to the city and the pulled the blueprints and told me it was all good to go but that was a total lie. As soon as I signed my lease and tried to get my inspections to open I was told absolutely nothing in the building was up to code. There was so much back and forth between the city inspectors and the architect that I had to hire, nobody was on the same page at all. One person would tell me I needed one thing so we’d add it to the plans and go back for the correction and then someone else would tell us it was wrong and it was a never-ending cycle of this. Nobody could communicate with each other and it ended up costing thousands of dollars on drawing blueprints. Every time I personally had to go down to the city I was disrespected and they would act like I had no idea what I was talking about when I was literally relaying the message from another department. It felt like that they didn’t take me seriously because I was a young girl. We would send the contractor down there and he would say the exact same thing I did and they would resolve the problem right away. It was a huge waste of everyone’s time because it was something that could have been handled in one trip vs having to make 10 trips down there. The main issue was plumbing which we had to completely gut and redo it all, and it took two years to get it done because of the lack of communication between the inspectors and plan checkers. So I signed my lease in 2018 and when everything was finally done two years later, it was 2020. The city shut down and everyone was working from home so I couldn’t get an inspector out to pass us and open the doors. Because I had been working on this project and paying rent for two years, paying plumber, city fees, business licenses and all the unexpected expenses, I ended up taking on a huge amount of debt because this seemed like a never-ending cycle.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Baked Vegan Sweets?
Just like the name says we are a vegan bakery, lol. We are more of the traditional full-service bakery vs one that only specializes in one area (cakes/cookies/etc.). I would say the thing that sets us apart from the others is that we are the full-service bakery and not just a cake shop(or a place that doesn’t offer cakes). Not to mention the fact that we are fully vegan! Because of my culinary background, I have developed all my recipes to be as close to a “regular” pastry as possible. Everything is made with flour and sugar so even though it’s vegan it’s only about as healthy as a normal dessert. But desserts are a treat and everyone deserves a treat sometimes.
At the time of writing this, I have two locations – the flagship bakery located at 718 Orange Ave, Long Beach 90813 which is where I make the cakes and a smaller storefront-only location at 420 Cherry Ave, Long Beach 90813. The original bakery is only open on Saturdays for sales of some of the more specialty items like croissants and pastries where our newer location is open Thursday-Monday for walk-in purchases of our smaller desserts and treats. I learned over the last year that the bakery is not in a good location for foot traffic which is why we reduced hours there but increased hours at the other store which is in a better/more walk-friendly location. Parking is not great at either location but it’s Long Beach so that’s to be expected however, there are parking lots across the street from both places that you are free to park in. We also sell to a couple of other businesses in the area, you can find my brownies and cookies at Hug Life and my croissants and danishes at Wood Coffee Co.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
I’ve learned that owning a business and working in it is a lot harder than expected. Sometimes I do overcommit myself and get stressed or overwhelmed but at the end of the day, I chose this life. A few months ago, I was feeling really discouraged and wanted to close the bakery and go back to work at Disney so I took a couple of weeks away from this and realized that actually wasn’t what I wanted at all so I did a full 180 and opened the second store instead of going out of business😅 The newer location is shared with V Burger and I am really grateful he reached out to me and offered me the space when he did because I was going to throw it all away and give up but this helped me regroup and in the long run it is beneficial for both of our businesses. Don’t get me wrong it still is overwhelming but I can’t imagine doing anything else.
Contact Info:
- Website: bakedvegansweets.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/bakedvegansweets
