We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alyssa Young. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alyssa below.

Hi Alyssa, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

One word:

per·se·ver·ance
/ˌpərsəˈvirəns/
Learn to pronounce
noun
persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.

My mission is rooted in my own personal life and it has been absolutely defined by persevering.
Starting, saving and growing Cake Llama orbits around persevering. My mission started, and has maintained, as creating platform to give back and support my community. Yes Cake Llama is a bakery, but it’s mission and purpose is to help others by way of baking. We’ve proven it can be accomplished but only by way of fighting through failure, letdowns, pandemics, economic hardship and peak and valley in between. The more we grow, the more we give back and it is an unbreakable cycle.
I am always reminding myself to never quit and that hope is contagious.

Alyssa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I was very fortunate to grow up with watching the family bakery make it happen. I vividly remember running around the pie shop as a young child thinking “How cool! People ACTUALLY make pies for a living?!” and my fascination never faded. As I became an adult however, I lost sight of this passion and kept it as a hobby to nerd out on. I had worked many professions but always had discord within myself, I wasn’t doing what I needed to be doing. So, I just made the leap. Applied for a minimum wage job at a wedding bakery and found my way through the industry working at various startups and small businesses. I learned how they made it happen, as well as observed the pitfalls. I found myself in the position I thought was the pinnacle, Executive Pastry Chef. It came with heavy pay discrimination in a male dominated kitchen accompanied with routine and overt sexual harassment. I decided to make the leap from family-owned kitchens to something more corporate, and I learned the reality of what happens to folks without any education. I was nearly a high school dropout, so I didn’t get much in the way of opportunity based of off that alone. So, I was determined to be prepared to shine if I was ever given a chance to prove myself. I started a baking side hustle to practice for this moment I thought was coming. The moment that came was the pandemic and great shut down. Overnight I lost my job, I immediately pivoted to full time with this side hustle that was Cake Llama and commit to turning it into a legitimate business. I had NOTHING but time and a lifetime of experience of trial and error. I decided to bet fully on myself and never look back, to use the experience I’ve had watching how others succeeded as well as failed and just go for it. It hasn’t been easy at all, but I have absolutely zero regrets.

I started Cake Llama catering to just weddings. With each year comes growth. We now cater to weddings, corporate events, backstage concert catering, retail/wholesale and free sandwich kits. Everything is customized, Watermelon Cake Pops for Harry Styles, Dookie Cupcakes for Green Day, interactive s’mores experiences for costal travel agencies, handmade fondant doggos for wedding cakes, custom made edible flowers for wedding cakes etc. We specialize in personalizing everyone’s experience and standing opposite of the cookie cutter vibes.

I’m honestly not sure if we’ve collectively solved one yet. However, at the end of the day I work for my community and by extension clients. I offer gainful employment to “at risk employees”, those transitioning out of halfway houses trying to get another chance. Currently I am working to solve the local problem providing a reliable and consistently open space for AA/NA meetings to be held to further support the community. Being in recovery myself I have always been committed to doing my part to break the stigma around it. While we haven’t gone into space or solved world hunger, we haven’t ended the countless problems that plague each generation; Cake Llama is just a drop in an infinitely large bucket. Our goal is more or less to encourage and inspire others to do their part, big or small, and be a light within their own community. The only way anyone can hope to solve a problem is with the help of others. It all starts with lending a helping hand and telling your story to remind other’s that we all fall, we all struggle, and we all can get back up.

Our Cake Llama Bread Program. I am MOST passionate about this program. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE catering to special events, weddings, mega concerts, etc. But from day one I have believed to my core that supporting our community needs to be at the core of our business and should be for every business to be honest. The Cake Llama Bread Program is quite literally, free bread. Well, sandwich kits really. I started this out of seeing the pain of food insecurity during the peak of the 2020 pandemic. It breaks my heart deeply to know families go without access to food. Our bread program has evolved over the years from 1 handmade fresh bread loaf to a large boule, a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jelly and an affirmation of hope from a member within the community. Our hiring structure is fairly unique as well, I really aim to help those in need. Offering employment to those transitioning from halfway houses is at the core of our hiring and team development as well as providing a space for hosting AA/NA meetings (current work in progress). So basically, when you book with Cake Llama, your invoice is supporting those who need support in various ways.

I am incredibly proud of many things Cake Llama has grown to be known for. But at the end of the day I am proud of all of it, every piece, every aspect, every failure, every success, every lofty, every wedding, every event, every loaf of bread. I am just simply proud to still be open and operating in a time where a lot of businesses and bakeries are permanently closing overnight, unable to pay their rent, laying off team members, scaling back etc. I am proud to still be open, slowly hiring and actually growing. This is hugely in part to the support we get from our base. They support us more than I could have ever imagined being supported, they rally hard, individually they come through with the most random and generous acts of kindness and words off affirmations to be shared. I started to inspire others but I never knew how much I’d be inspired in return. I am proud of who we’ve worked for and proud of who we have supported and yas queen’d on blast. It’s really that simple and unselfish, I am simply proud that so many are on this Cake Llama journey with my little team and I.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Honesty. Literally, honestly this answer is one word, Honesty. There is a lot of distrust in this industry, distrust in pricing, distrust in delivering client expectations, distrust in pricing, distrust in reputation. When I started Cake Llama, some of my OG clients reading this will know, I was very vocal about how honest our practices are and how fair and honest our pricing was. Full transparency, what you see is exactly what you get. Saying things like “I honestly don’t think you need to order more,” and “It is honestly too much of a pain deal with charging more for various flavors, it’s just one flat rate to make it easier to have exactly what you want.” Also, “in full transparency, I just don’t know how to do that design but here are some other places who definitely can if you feel they’re honestly better suited for what you’re wanting.” And “it’s your special event so it is what you are most comfortable with not what I’m wanting you to purchase from me.” I firmly believe in these type of honest business practices, as business owners we have the responsibility to do what’s right even if it at times means it is less lucrative. Put yourself in your client’s shoes, when you feel scammed or taken advantage of or swindled it kind of bums you out right? Are you willing to go back to that feeling or are you more willing to give somewhere a chance else next time? Earning your client’s trust to give you a chance absolutely has to be reinforced with authenticity and honesty.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

This at home, random cake requests bakery- definitely began as a side hustle. Honestly if it wasn’t for the pandemic hitting it could very well have stayed a side hustle. I was too afraid to try and see if it could turn into something, and actual “job” and not a side hustle. When the pandemic came I saw it as a huge opportunity to F around and find out, I got to work day one of the shutdowns. Building a website, writing menus, looking into pricing, literally starting a business. I had to find a way to pay the bills while I was on lockdown. I had to learn at an accelerated rate in a time it seemed like all of the traditional business models ended up permanently closing overnight. I was pivoting my way through the dark and with each new unprecedented event I stood a little bit taller- doing it scared every step of the way. Fast forward 3 years later, I have grown into a commercial bakery space, hired two fabulous team members, been voted Best in Texas, provided custom catering to A List music artists and, my personal favorite, fed hundreds of our Cake Llama sandwich kit donations to families facing food insecurities.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cakellama.com
• Instagram: CakeLlama