We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Vivian Hernandez-Jackson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Vivian thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I think success has a different meaning to lots of business owners. For myself getting to make a living doing what I love is a huge success. Having a line out the door 13 years later is a success. Making a consistent product daily is a success. Having employees stay on board with me for years is a success.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have been baking at home since I was 8 years old and became fully obsessed with all things baking and cooking by 10 years old. Cooking shows on tv, magazines at the check out, as well as any cookbooks I could get my hands on. In high school I ran a little cake business from home and was baking up a storm all the time.After graduating with degree in Hospitality Management from FIU in my hometown of Miami, Fl, I left to London to attend Le Cordon Bleu.. I am first generation Cuban American and one of 5 children. When I told my parents that I wanted to leave them to go to a country I had never been to they pretty much flipped. But I was not backing down and honestly going to that school and having all those experiences and struggles on my own without support really made me the woman and business owner I am today.

Azucar is a “Cuban style patisserie”. I wanted customers to know it’s not a traditional Cuban bakery but more a patisserie from a Cuban girl who studied in Europe. We serve Cuban style coffee, Cuban style pastelitos, and Cuban sandwiches. Aside from that the rest of our menu is a very fun modern and tropical twist on scones, cookies, savory pastries, and cold desserts & mousse cakes.

I am the most proud of our pastelitos. We use all butter puff pastry and the best pink guava there is. The pastelitos de carne are filled with my miom’s picadillo recipe and are seriously the BEST. There are so many Miami transplants that are just so excited to have found a taste of home on the West coast.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

I opened my bakery when there was zero social media in 2008. I solely depended on the local community, repeat customers and word of mouth. It’s been 13 years and I have never paid for any advertising whatsoever. I really love that it grew organically into what it is today. I for one could not have handled the volume we do now on my own back then. It gave me time to get all the recipes dialed in and really create systems and processes for keeping our product consistent. It allowed me the time to really teach and train my bakers myself.
I would like to think that our green box spreads the word around town. It’s definitely our calling card.The fact that we are very close to 4 different elementary schools is also huge and that never occurred to me when picking our spot.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Great product, consistent product, made with love, and really strong coffee.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.iloveazucar.com
• Instagram: @iloveazucar

Image Credits
Justin Halbert Oscar Gutierrez