Today we’d like to introduce you to Fernando & Ursula Lopez.
Fernando & Ursula, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
It all started with a wife who loves to bake and a husband who loves to travel. In 2019, Ursula started baking custom cakes for friends and family. After an amazing family trip to Peru, the course of our bakery changed forever. “We returned only to find ourselves craving the unique pastries and exotic fruits found only in Latin American countries.” It became our mission to share our passion for the pastries and flavors of our culture with those around us. In 2021, our life took a couple unexpected turns. We were blessed with a pregnancy and Fernando had an impending deployment scheduled. Needless to say, we needed help. “What my family did is truly priceless and no amount of words will ever describe how grateful I feel.” Family came from far and wide to keep our dream going through the birth of our baby girl and what felt like a never-ending deployment. Today, we are not just Ursula and Fernando’s Sweet Story Company. We are a veteran-owned small business. We are a bakery with a passion for introducing our culture to others through our pastries. We are a support system, a team, a family.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
We have had several obstacles in the last few years since starting this venture. Like everyone in the food service industry, covid put a complete stop to our forward progress for some time. However, the local support as we all came out of the quarantine has been unbelievable. As stated earlier, another obstacle for us was a difficult pregnancy for Ursula while Fernando was set to deploy. One family member moved from Louisianna for a year to help bake and another family member left her job at the time to join our team. Soon, we had five family members working hard to keep our business going AND growing while we were both unable to. Additionally, as a home bakery, we are limited to what we are able to make per the health department. It has been a challenge navigating those limitations while at the same time providing the best product we can.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
We specialize in delicious home-baked goods with Latin American flare. The traditional items we make are custom cakes, cupcakes, and gourmet cookies. Our Latin American pastries are alfajores, pastelitos, sweet empanadas, and gourmet conchitas. We are most known for our French macarons and alfajores. We are most proud of our ability to take traditional pastries and combine them with our Hispanic culture through flavors or taking traditional Latin American pastries and combine them with local flavors. Our culture is a mixture of our heritage (Peruvian, Mexican, Puerto Rican) and our upbringing (Californian) and we like to share that with our community through pastries.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
We currently sell French macarons at local wineries in wine country. Be on the lookout for our brick & mortar this year!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sweetstoryco.com
- Instagram: @sweetstoryco
- Facebook: facebook.com/sweetstoryco
Image Credits
Gabrielle Heidebrink
Paige Klingsporn
