Today we’d like to introduce you to Michelle Adams.
The Sugar Path started in 2011 by two sisters as a hobby—baking sweet treats and selling them at their local farmer’s markets on the weekend. Both sisters had full-time careers and lived over an hour apart. They were searching for a way to spend some more time together and always enjoyed baking. Being raised in a large Italian family in a farming community, they had learned early on the special love of living farm to table. Wanting to pay homage to their grandparents, they decided to turn their foodie calling into a small business. Renting kitchen space proved to be challenging and as the demand for their products grew, the founders took the next step and rented space in downtown Geneva where they built their own kitchen and retail shop. They have literally built their business one cupcake at a time—surviving an economic downturn and one of the worst winters in Chicagoland when nobody wanted to go outside.
Consistency, hard work and attention to detail helped them to build a sweet business. They have become known for their amazing pies, being featured on WGN Chicago’s Best TV and tagged as one of the best destinations in the State to get pie. They also have a flourishing cake business —both artisan cakes and wedding cakes, and have been featured in Brides Magazine and Style Me Pretty. In 2016 they won a contest sponsored by On Deck and Barbara Corcoran for their unique cake jars. Since winning the contest they have expanded to nationwide shipping and now ship cake jars, cookies and pies all over the nation, including Hawaii and Alaska.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Not at all. First, competition in this business is pretty fierce so you have to find a way to stand out. We are very consistent and strive to create the very best experience for all of our customers, whether it’s a one cookie order or a large wedding we are catering. Second, our business faces a lot of challenges, both retail challenges as well as catering. We’ve had to figure out how to safely deliver 6 tiered cakes and prevent buttercream melting on a hot August day. We’ve also had to figure out how you get people to walk into your retail bakery shop—which is no small feat particularly in light of the attention to fitness and healthy eating, as the popularity on online shopping. We now have online ordering and we ship nationwide.
Finally, because we use premium ingredients and our pastry chefs skillfully handcraft and decorate everything fresh for order, we cannot compete with grocery store pricing. In New York and LA and downtown Chicago, specialty bakeries like ours don’t face that competition as much, but here in the suburbs, we do daily. Despite that, we’ve remained true to how we started and the ingredients we use. Our products have exceptional taste and flavor because of our ingredients and our methods of baking.
Please tell us about The Sugar Path.
We specialize in sweet experiences. We are known for our amazing pie with its hand-rolled butter crust. We are known for our artisan cake flavors—our customers come a long way to get a slice of our famous Coconut Cake or a Churro cupcake. Recently we’ve expanded our cookie line and now people are craving our cracked sugar cookies with a dollop of our creamy signature buttercream. What sets us apart is that we were raised farm to table and employ that concept in our business—we use premium ingredients and hard labor to handcraft our products fresh. We use Wisconsin butter, Valrhona Cocoa Powder, Callebaut Chocolate and Nielsen Massey Vanilla. These are all really high-quality ingredients and make for a better dessert experience. That’s what is important to us and what we work so hard for—to deliver the best dessert experience to our customers. If you’re going to eat a slice of cake or pie, make it the best cake and the best pie.
We are most proud of our amazing team members. We have the hardest working team ever. A job in a kitchen is one of the hardest jobs you can have—you’re standing all day, you’re working quickly to get items baked and decorated and don’t get me started on the dishes! Our front team is amazing too—waiting on customers all day, arranging a beautiful display. Our team all want to do a great job and deliver the best experience. This is their life—baking for other people, decorating the cakes for your celebrations, taking your orders. They love it when our customers come back and tell us how we helped them, how we made something special for them. It’s why we do what we do.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Everything! You learn a lot building a business and when you look back you can see all the things you could have done differently that may have made a difference. Some things are little things that likely would not have impacted the business but may have saved some money. Other things are bigger. We didn’t have a business plan at the beginning and if we had, it may have made a big difference. We struggled to try to be what everyone wanted us to be—it’s hard because you want to please and you want to succeed. Now we know how important it is to be who you are and to say no to what you don’t do or don’t do well. It’s more important to excel at a few things than try to be everything to everyone. We do a few things —cake, pie, and cookies—and we do them really, really well.
Pricing:
- Whole pies start at $22
- Box of 2 Cake jars online to ship $15
- Artisan 6 inch, 3 layer cake $40
- Holiday Tiny Pie Sampler online to ship $23.50
Contact Info:
- Address: 315 W. State Street
- Website: www.thesugarpath.com
- Phone: 630-262-3353
- Email: events@thesugarpath.com
- Instagram: @thesugarpath
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/thesugarpath
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/thesugarpath
- Yelp: thesugarpath
Image Credit:
Kristin Lavoie Photography, Jennifer Kaye Photography
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