Love for sweets and family guides this story. Sisters Catherine and Cheryl Reinhart started their entrepreneurial journey (as many others tend to) from their garage back in 1993. Sweet Life Patisserie was born with the strength of family behind and a creative vision in front of it.
The Reinharts clearly saw the niche in creating hand-made wedding and birthday cakes from scratch. The business grew allowing them to move into their Monroe st. location in 1999 and with continued upward trajectory a 2nd smaller location opened close to the University of Oregon in 2016.
Today you can witness that same familial bond and passion for creation translated into every member of the Sweet Life team. They have won a myriad of awards and accolades for their wide assortment of products. Sweet Life shows a deep commitment to sustainability and contributes to many local non-profit organizations.
Personally, I can’t wait to go back and order a cup of rooibos tea with a delicious piece of rhapsody cake(chocolate fudge with a raspberry compote top).
Please read on for my recent interview with the Reinhart sisters:
Q) The origin story of great businesses is fascinating. Can you please tell us a little about the background and how you and your sister came to create Sweet Life in 1993?
We had a lot of cooking and baking experience from growing up on a small farm in Ohio and then moving on to cooking and baking in a variety of restaurants in Eugene around 1992-1993. The entrepreneurial spirit struck us at the tender ages of 24 and 26, and we saw a niche for specialty scratch-made cakes that wasn’t being filled in Eugene at the time. We converted our garage into a commercial kitchen and began our home business making wedding and birthday cakes. At the end of 1999, our customer base had grown, and we moved our kitchen to a building with a retail front and seating.
Q) Are there any particular pastries or desserts you are especially proud of and how did you come to create them?
When Catherine was younger, one of her favorite desserts was the Napoleon (layers of crunchy puff pastry with creamy custard). We tried to make them but it was challenging to keep them fresh tasting for more than a day. So she created the Josephine (in homage to Napoleon’s wife) with the same components, but we made it so we could make a few at a time so they would stay crisp. We serve it with a delightful organic raspberry sauce. It has been a favorite since then! Cheryl brought passion fruit to our desserts, beginning with a passion fruit tart for Valentine’s day one year. Since then, we’ve realized how much everyone loves passion fruit, so we also use it in some our signature cakes as well, like our orange strawberry passion fruit cake.
Q) Unfortunately we have to address Covid and how it has affected all of us, especially the restaurant industry, can you tell us how you have managed and pivoted?
We can’t even tell you how many documents and systems we created and recreated over the last two years to keep people safe and keep our business running. Hundreds of hours of meetings have been logged to find our way through the Covid mire. Fortunately we were well positioned for takeout unlike some restaurants, so it was easy to pivot to take out only. (we haven’t had in store seating since March 2020 except for a few weeks when we thought it was over, ha!) We’ve managed well though, because we have a committed team of managers and senior staff who have been with us every step of the way. We also brought in a conflict manager and coach to help give employees more support for all the challenging emotions and issues that have come up directly related to Covid. We feel very lucky, considering the amount of restaurants and bakeries going out of business, but it has taken a toll on us in so many ways. On a positive note, we feel more like a tight-knit community after having gone through this tragedy together.
Q) Can you please tell us a little about going local and trying to serve the community around you?
It’s always been a goal of ours to support our community in all the ways we can. We donate to local non-profits, we provide good wages, cost of living wage increases, health insurance, and other benefits to support our employees, we buy from local distributors and farmers and we try to purchase organic and non-gmo whenever possible. It’s hard to imagine making a difference or an impact on the larger world but we feel the impact when a customer comes in and says “thank you” for supporting our local non-profit company.
Q) What do you envision for the future of Sweet Life?
These days it feels like we’ve just been dealing with what’s right in front of us. But some of the goals are to get our training manuals updated and systematized, improve our performance engagement between managers and employees, get our managers trained to be effective leaders and think about what will happen when we one day retire from Sweet Life! We hope that Sweet Life will continue many years after we’re long gone.
