Business World

The recipes for Reine Bayoc’s cakes and cookies can’t be found in a book, and neither can her ingredients for starting her own business in St. Louis. The concept for her SweetArt bakeshop was born from raw rejection and creative energy, all brought to life with family support and convenient timing.

Bayoc opened the shop in the Shaw neighborhood in December, specializing in cupcakes, cookies and other baked sweets. Since then, she has expanded the menu to include quiches, sandwiches and light lunch items — all vegetarian, all natural ingredients and all made fresh daily. Keeping things fresh has Bayoc putting in 70 hours in a five-day workweek, but she said she refuses to freeze her products overnight for future sale.

SweetArt was started with loans from family and not long after a successful art sale by her husband, Cbabi, a local artist who has gained some national attention during their 11 years of marriage. Bayoc’s creative interests were in writing, but after having three children, she found it difficult to get a job that allowed her to be a mother and a steady supplier of income for the family.

While searching for jobs and raising her children, Bayoc learned to bake and started selling her goods at local markets, even getting a cookie contract with Straub’s Markets for a time. Despite minor success, she longed for something steadier that also could be a home to her husband’s art.

When friends found a deal for cheap retail space, the Bayocs decided to take a risk, spent their last cent to open the shop the day after Christmas and prayed for rain. She now says with a nervous laugh that the family might have been homeless if the shop had failed.

But Bayoc said the business is on pace to turn a small profit in its first year — which, if that holds true, is a major accomplishment for most any small business during this recession.

When did you realize you would make the switch from writing to baking?

I go (into a local magazine) and I’m doing the interview and I’m thinking it’s going really well. … You know I have holes in my r