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Date: 8/31/2022
EAST LONGMEADOW – The Sweet Boutique, a small bakery and cafe opened in East Longmeadow on 33 Harkness Ave. After baking out of her home kitchen for seven years, owner Niki Moran decided to move up to a storefront.
“I’ve always wanted to open a bakery since I was child,” she said. “I’ve always loved baking and I was doing it from home. It just became too much to do out of my tiny little kitchen, so my husband and I talked about it, and it was just time to take the jump and go to a commercial kitchen.”
Moran specializes in decorative sugar cookies. She also makes coffee, drinks, lemonades, gourmet cookies, stuffed cookies, cupcakes, macaroons, brownies and cinnamon rolls.
Moran began as “the Ginger Baker,” as she has red hair, and started decorating cookies as a side hobby. During that time, Moran needed a creative outlet, she had a newborn and a full-time career as a Surgical Neurophysiologist.
One day, she posted her cookies on Facebook, and someone asked her if she could make cookies for their baby shower, which she did. “It was my first paid set,” Moran recalled. “I charged $2 a cookie and it took me six days to finish them. Then it just was word of mouth from there and I exploded. Now seven years later, I have my first storefront.”
She continued, “It feels like it happened so fast, but it was so many years in the making. I have a dedicated customer base that have followed me through everything. All the ups and downs and all the changes we’re going through, so it’s been a really cool process.”
Moran grew up in East Longmeadow and graduated from East Longmeadow High School. Though she lives in Springfield, Moran couldn’t find anything in the area. She said she really likes the location on Harkness Avenue and how it is close to the Springfield line and highway.
“There’s not a lot of coffee shops around here,” Moran pointed out. “I just wanted a space that was like a destination where people saw how it looked on the inside and they wanted to come check it out. It was the perfect spot for it. We have a lot of parking. It’s a quiet little plaza and I just love it here.”
Moran wants the Sweet Boutique to be a cool place people can hang out all day, study, have their meetings and drink coffee.
Eventually, she would like to branch out and have a couple of locations throughout Western Mass. and Connecticut. In the meantime, for the whole month of October, the Sweet Boutique will turn into the spooky boutique. Everything will be Halloween themed with contests and giveaways.
“The feedback I’ve been getting is amazing,” Moran said. “Those who have been following me for years say they’re proud of me and look forward to come to the shop. I also have completely new customers who don’t know me tell me my cookies are the most delicious things they’ve ever eaten.”
She went on to say, “That makes everything worth it. All the stress and the 16-hour days of working, people just keep coming back every single day and get the same thing or try something new. It’s just incredible that people have been with me through all of this for the last seven years and they’re still here rooting for me.”
The Sweet Boutique is open Wednesday through Friday from 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m.- 3 p.m. Visit thesweetboutiquema.com, call 224-1873 or email niki@thesweetboutiquema.com for more information.