We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mary Hinton. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mary below.
Mary, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
Idea originally came from my mother. After losing my job I was trying to figure out what was next. My mother said let’s do a cupcake food truck. I didn’t know much about food trucks so I thought maybe we would sell cupcakes in the mall. We had a meeting in at the mall for a kiosk and on the spot, they liked the idea and concept. In that very meeting I came up with the business name and they gave me two weeks to be ready to come to the mall and sale. I spent the next two weeks with my grandmother coming up with flavors, learning to make icing and designing packaging. At this time, it was only big franchise cupcake bakeries so we thought having a small, local owned bakery could be a hit.777
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Sweetheart was created to be family business and spread the love of great baked goods. What started in the kitchen of my home in 2015 with the idea from my mother and the guidance of my grandmother who has always been an amazing cook and baker we focused on cupcakes. As we grew in clients and various trade shows we looked for a bakery location in 2016 and officially opened in 2017. Once the bakery was open, we added other items to the menu. Customer request helped us build and prefect products. We have always thrived on our customers being like family. We call them our “Sweeties” and all of our cupcake flavors are named after family, friends and customers. It’s always a joy when people come in and see their name and instantly feel cupcake famous. We have customers who have been with us since our kiosk in the mall Our slogan is “Why not treat y0urself, Sweetheart?” and we strive to always make that happen.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
COVID!! That was the biggest pivot we have experienced so far. When COVID hit no one knew what to do. We all really didn’t even know what it was or the true impact of it all. Bakeries were closing as soon as it hit. It made us all so nervous. Things was quiet for a few months and slowly we started really promoting specials of the week. We did only orders and pickups to control product waste. We partnered with a few neighbors to deliver treats to neighborhoods. Corporate orders really started to pick up. Instantly we had to change our hours and really work on accommodating our customers. We started to see growth and learned so much about our own business. It also was perfect for us to work on some new treat ideas and develop them to be great products.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
We keep in touch with our clients by having at least one customer appreciation a year. We also keep in touch with customers who order every year to help make it easy to place their order. I think our personal family environment within the bakery keep people coming as well as our word-of-mouth growth.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sweethearttreatsnc.com
- Instagram: yoursugarfix
- Facebook: sweethearttreats
- Twitter: yoursugarfix
Image Credits
Photography: Anna Riley of Annamations Make up: Kela Experience