Baked From Experience. Built With Purpose
Sweet Drop Bakery is the next chapter of a seven-year journey built on growth, experience, and a love for creating desserts people remember.
CHAPTER ONE - 2019
Where It All Started
Seven years ago, my journey began with a dream, a love for baking, and a business then known as Simply Cheesecakes and More.
While working full-time as a manager at Walmart, I spent my time outside of work building my business one order at a time. This photo captures one of the moments I’ll never forget—my first pop-up event & first major festival S&P 2019 as an official business owner.
What started at a small table quickly became something much bigger than I imagined. By September 2019, the growth of my business gave me the opportunity to leave my full-time job and take a chance on myself.
Just two months later, in November 2019, my cheesecakes entered their first grocery store: Cypress Point Fresh Market
I didn’t know it then, but that was only the beginning.
My first pop-up event as an official business - 2019
My first major festival — Shrimp & Petroleum Festival 2019
CHAPTER TWO - 2020-2021
BIGGER THAN I IMAGINED
The little business I started from home was becoming something I never imagined. What began with one grocery store grew into something much bigger. In 2020, I moved production from my home into a licensed kitchen at the Civic Center, where I spent months filling orders and continuing to grow. Eventually, that growth led to a wholesale operation supplying multiple stores across Louisiana. I went from baking at home to a licensed kitchen and leading a team. This hard work eventually granted me one of my biggest opportunities.
I had built something bigger than I ever imagined—but I was about to learn that growth alone wasn’t enough.
From home baking to a licensed kitchen
Every restock was a big deal across Louisiana
When a cheesecake drop hit the shelves, customers showed up
CHAPTER THREE - 2021-2022
WHEN GROWTH CAME WITH A COST
At the height of my business growth, I entered a partnership believing it would help take everything I had built to the next level. Simply Cheesecakes and More became Alexandra Cheesecakes, and for a while, it looked like the dream was getting even bigger.
We had a warehouse, a growing team, and desserts reaching more than 100 stores across Louisiana. But behind the success, I began experiencing things that made me realize growth isn’t always the same as progress.
Eventually, I was faced with one of the hardest decisions I had made as a business owner: stay in a situation that no longer felt right or walk away from something I had worked incredibly hard to build.
I chose to walk away. I chose my team. And I chose myself.
The warehouse era— when the dream became bigger than I imagined.
At the height of Alexandra Cheesecakes, success looked different from what I was experiencing behind the scenes
CHAPTER FOUR - 2022-2024
PART I—STARTING OVER WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING
Walking away meant leaving behind more than a partnership. I was stepping away from a business operation I had spent years building—and for the first time, I had to figure out what starting over really looked like.
I took a few months away to regroup, then returned to what I knew: baking from home. For about a year, I rebuilt one order at a time. Eventually, I took another leap of faith and opened a location in my hometown. After everything I had been through, having a space of my own felt like proof that I could rebuild.
I was able to reconnect with many of my previous wholesale customers and begin growing again. I didn’t recover every opportunity I once had, including one of my largest accounts, but I had done something I wasn’t sure I could do:
I started over—and built again.
PART II—BUILDING IT WASN’T THE SAME AS SUSTAINING IT
Getting back into a building felt like a victory. I had rebuilt after losing so much, reconnected with customers, and proved to myself that I could create something again.
But this chapter taught me a different kind of lesson.
I was so focused on rebuilding what I had lost that I hadn’t yet learned how to create the systems needed to sustain what I was building. I had the product. I had customers. I knew how to work hard. But hard work alone couldn’t replace structure, discipline, budgeting, and systems.
After about a year in my location, I made the difficult decision to close in 2024.
For the first time, I began to understand that being great at what I created and knowing how to build a sustainable business were two different things.
A fresh start, a new space, and another chance to build again
CHAPTER FIVE - 2024-2025
WHEN STARTING OVER WASN’T ENOUGH
After closing my location in 2024, I found myself back where I had started so many times before—baking from home.
I took some time away, but eventually I started taking orders again. From the outside, it probably looked like I was simply rebuilding. But this time, something felt different.
I had already proven that I could bake from home, grow a customer base, enter grocery stores, build a team, operate from a warehouse, supply stores across Louisiana, and open my own location.
I no longer needed to prove that I could build a business. I needed to understand why I couldn’t sustain one.
And slowly, I began to recognize something uncomfortable: I was repeating many of the same patterns while expecting a different outcome.
The discipline still wasn’t there. The systems still weren’t there. The structure still wasn’t there. And eventually, the excitement that once surrounded baking began to disappear.
By October 2025, I was tired.
So, I stopped.
I stopped taking orders. I stepped away from social media. I didn’t make a big announcement or explain everything I had been carrying. After years of building, losing, rebuilding, and trying again, I simply walked away.
For the first time in years, I wasn’t trying to figure out how to rebuild the business. I was trying to figure out whether I was supposed to rebuild it at all.
Maybe the next step wasn’t another restart. Maybe I needed to stop long enough to understand what every restart had been trying to teach me.
Back where it started — but no longer the same person who started there
CHAPTER SIX - 2025-PRESENT
THIS TIME I’M BUILDING DIFFERENT
For eight months, I didn’t bake.
No orders. No pop-ups. No more trying to figure out how to make the business work again.
I returned to working full-time and allowed myself to focus on other parts of my life. For the first time in years, I wasn’t chasing the next opportunity or trying to rebuild what I had lost.
I needed the distance.
Somewhere in that quiet, I began to realize that maybe baking had never been the problem. Maybe I didn’t need to walk away from the gift—I needed to change the way I built the business around it.
When I decided to return, I knew I couldn’t return the same way.
This time, I didn’t start with the desserts.
I started with the foundation.
I began paying attention to the things I had overlooked before—the structure, systems, finances, branding, customer experience, policies, and small details that create a business capable of lasting.
I wasn’t trying to recreate Simply Cheesecakes and More. I wasn’t trying to reclaim Alexandra Cheesecakes. And I wasn’t racing to get back everything I once had.
I was building something new from everything those experiences taught me.
AND THEN CAME THE SWEET DROP BAKERY
The Sweet Drop Bakery isn’t the beginning of my story. It’s what came from living through all of it.
The home kitchen. The first pop-up. The grocery stores. The warehouse. The partnerships. The teams. The growth. The losses. The rebuilding. The closing. And even the season when I stopped altogether.
Every chapter taught me something that I needed for this one.
Seven years ago, I knew how to bake.
Then I learned how to grow.
Then I learned how to lose.
Then I learned how to rebuild.
Now, I’m learning how to build something that lasts.
And this time, I’m not racing.
I’m building with purpose.
The next chapter is being written now…..
The Sweetest Chapter Yet
Sweet Drop Bakery is more than a fresh start. It’s the result of every lesson, every setback, every opportunity, and every person who supported me along the way.
This time, I’m building intentionally—creating desserts that bring excitement before the first bite and an experience worth coming back for.
Whether you’ve supported me since the beginning or you’re discovering Sweet Drop for the first time, I’m so glad you’re here.
Here’s to what we’re building next—one Sweet Drop at a time.