Sugarbloom Bakery

If you frequent coffee shops around the city, you’ve likely had a Sugarbloom pastry (this place is essentially LA’s original ghost bakery). While most small food businesses start off with retail and expand into wholesale, Sugarbloom did the opposite. In fact, owner and pastry chef Sharon Wang said the past year has given her the opportunity to go back to Sugarbloom’s roots. With the wholesale business, Wang focused on classic pastries, but selling directly to customers has allowed her to bring back some more unconventional treats, like the kimchi and SPAM musubi croissant, which was inspired over a dinner of Korean army stew. Born in Taiwan and raised in Arcadia, Wang had a career in interactive design before deciding to take a sabbatical and enrolling in a weeklong discovery program at the Culinary Institute of America. After a decade working in the Thomas Keller empire, she started making pastries for a friend’s coffee shop in Arcadia in 2012. Soon after, Stumptown reached out to her to supply pastries for their Arts District flagship, and the rest is delicious history.