The smell of vanilla, freshly baked cupcakes and a pot of coffee roasting overwhelm your senses with joy as you enter the doors of the little teal house on 7th St.
Samantha’s Sweets Bakery opened Friday, Oct. 25 in Arkadelphia. The iconic teal color of the bakery led many customers to stop by and try out their new sweets. The bakery specializes in cakes, cookies, pies and macaroons. They are also selling a wide variety of cold brew and freshly made hot coffee.
“Our first day we sold out of everything two hours before closing. It has been steady since,” said Samantha Brown, the owner of the bakery. “We have yet to have a long period without any customers coming in, so it has been very exciting.”
Samantha, 23, recently discovered that she wanted to open her own bakery. A Henderson graduate with a degree in education, Samantha began to work in Hope, Ark. as a teacher before realizing that it was not what God had planned for her.
The concept of opening her own bake shop started soon after her teaching career began. Samantha felt led to leave her job as a teacher to pursue her dreams of creating a bakery.
Choosing Arkadelphia as the starting point for the business was an easy decision. Samantha has been living in Arkadelphia for more than five and a half years. The long standing relationship Samantha and her family have to Arkadelphia made it an easy transition to have the town as their permanent residence.
“This is home to me,” Samantha said. “I love the community and all of the people here. It feels good to help out and be a part of it.”
Finding the perfect location in Arkadelphia was the first task on the agenda. After long days of searching through the town, Connor Brown, husband to Samantha, googled commercial real estate and found the perfect place to open their bakery from the very first listing shown.
The house had recently been listed on the market. The Browns then decided to tour the potential property and wanted to buy it on the spot.
“We had been looking for a long time, but no one was really selling,” Connor said. “I had almost given up when I found the listing for this building just down the street from where I was eating at the time.”
Samantha immediately began to create her brand for the bakery, which included making a website, finalizing her recipes and painting the building the now iconic teal color all by hand.
Samantha has also included a blog in the bakery’s website, where she discusses her personal health, her newfound love for baking and even a comical story about her year long struggle to make the perfect macaroon.
The blog allows readers to see Samantha’s reasoning on why her love for baking has recently grown. In the past, Samantha struggled with body image and felt as though she could never meet the expectations of those around her. She continuously pressured herself to eat the right foods every day to the point where she could not truly enjoy the food that she was consuming. If she did eat the wrong food guilt ensued her.
“I want anyone who is suffering with anything like what I went through to know that they can overcome it. They can enjoy life and food without the guilt or fear of food. I want them (and everyone) to know that they are beautiful, and a cupcake every once in a while is not going to hurt them or make them any less of a person,” Samantha said in one of her blog posts.
Samantha wanted her love for baking to show within her treats, and choosing the menu that fit her vision of the bakery was essential. All of the recipes were created to give the customers a feeling of home.
“Arkadelphia is full of college students who become homesick,” Connor said. “When you leave here with a treat, you are taking a slice of home with you. I’ve had several people tell me that our cookies taste like their grandma’s cookies.”
The bakery on 7th St. is just the beginning for the young couple’s vision. The Browns hope to eventually have several locations within the surrounding area.
“My main goal for my business is to make people happy,” Samantha said.
By Katelyn Myers, staff writer
