Vanilla Sugar Bake Shoppe opens brick-and-mortar location in Webster Groves

Vanilla Sugar Bake Shoppe, a St. Louis-based bakery that began with the collaboration between two home bakers, opened in mid-December at 7949 Big Bend Blvd. in Webster Groves.

For co-owners and neighbors Lindsey Dreste and Katie Cohoon, baking has always been a passion. “Honestly, we got into it because it’s something we’re both good at,” Dreste said. “A lot of people were encouraging us to sell our baked goods.” Initially, the two sold their products separately. Cohoon sold her decorated sugar cookies under Katie’s Cookie Creations and Dreste sold her drop cookies via WG Vanilla Bean. “We decided to merge because we collaborated a lot; we also live a few houses down the street from each other,” Dreste said. “We both brought separate things together that really made it a whole bakery.”

Vanilla Sugar Bake Shoppe’s menu will mainly feature drop cookies, decorated sugar cookies and cookie cakes, which have been the top sellers at past pop-ups and events, but there will also be specialty products offered throughout each week such as muffins, macarons and meringues. They also offer housemade hot chocolate mix, vanilla extract and occasionally even housemade marshmallows, along with cookie decorating kits, gift cards and T-shirts.

At 750 square feet, the shop is two-thirds commercial bakery and one-third sales area with no customer seating. The space has been completely redone: It’s modern, clean and mainly white with accents of hunter green, black and gold. According to Dreste, opening a commercial space has many benefits. “We decided we wanted to be out of our homes and wanted a more commercial kitchen, which allows us to do corporate orders and sell in grocery stores,” Dreste said. “It kind of legitimizes our business essentially.” They also enjoy meeting and connecting with new customers – something that was difficult to do without the commercial space.

What excites Cohoon and Dreste the most is the opportunity to work with family. “We are just a small, family-run business; our kids are going to be in here helping us with the cash register,” Dreste said. “My dad built the bakery case from scratch. Our families came together and shared their special talents to help us build the place, and that’s what is so cool to us is that it’s an old-school, family-run business. We take a lot of pride in that.”

Vanilla Sugar Bake Shoppe is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. In the next few weeks, the website will offer a function to place custom orders. Follow along on Instagram and Facebook pages for updates.