Lynchburg resident Saundra Burns was told by friends for years that she needed to open a bakery. So on Black Friday she and husband Cody took the plunge and opened Details Sweet Shoppe in Hillsboro, with rave reviews.
Details Sweet Shoppe isn’t your typical bakery. Burns told The Times-Gazette that her shop specializes in cupcakes, cookies and pies of every type and flavor.
“It all started with the sugar cookies,” Saundra Burns said. “I had done custom sugar cookies for friends and family for different parties and events, and everyone just loved how they tasted and the amount of detail I put into icing them.”
Cupcakes came next and after serving up homemade carrot cake “people were telling me ‘you’ve got to start a bakery,’” Burns said.
“I can vouch for everything being made from scratch,” Cody, her husband of 13 years, said. “I shredded all the carrots personally.”
Details Sweet Shoppe is a family operation, and although Saundra is the “brains” behind the creativity she brings to baking, Cody provides the “brawn” necessary to keep everything running smoothly like washing bowls and making icing.
Tapping into her inner entrepreneur, Burns quit her job as human relations director at a Hillsboro skilled nursing facility and quickly moved into her new surroundings at 134 W. Main St. in Hillsboro.
“We’re renting the building from Ann and Robin Morris,” she said. “They have another building that they are planning to remodel for me across the street that will have seating so we can do food and coffee, too.”
Saundra’s vision is that of a midtown Manhattan café that would feature bagels, wraps, light breakfast, chicken and macaroni salad, fresh veggies and, of course, coffee.
If everything goes according to plan, they hope to move into the bigger location next summer.
“Behind the old BP station there is a little gingerbread-looking house,” she said. “And they said when they get it remodeled we could move over there, which will be great since I could do my baking there, too.”
Currently, Saundra fills all the orders for baked goods at home, sometimes staying in her kitchen until the early hours of the morning.
The Middletown native said she wanted to do something different, and since there wasn’t a cookie and cupcake shop in Hillsboro, she decided to fulfill her passion for baking and open up one.
“I thought it would be neat that someone could be driving through town and see our shop and say to themselves ‘let’s drop in and see what they’ve got’ and have a cupcake,” she said.
That was exactly what brought Miranda Hileman and her mother, Cindy Coldiron, into Details Sweet Shoppe on Friday.
The two Bainbridge women were returning home when they saw the sign on the store front and needing something for an upcoming birthday party, stopped in, and ordered some specialty cupcakes.
For the office crowd, the traditional coffee and donuts will be offered when the businesses moves into its bigger location, which they hope will be in late July.
Reach Tim Colliver at 937-402-2571
