Today we’d like to introduce you to Cheryl Reinhart.
Hi Cheryl, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My sister and I started Sweet Life as a home business when we were in our mid-twenties. We had bought a house in Eugene in 1992, and in 1993 we converted our one-car garage into a tiny commercial bakery. Our vision was to make decadent cakes that not only looked beautiful, but were made with the best ingredients, using organic local and GMO-free ingredients.
For the first 6 years, we created wedding cakes and sold wholesale cakes, brownies, and pies to restaurants. At the end of 1999, we opened our first retail location at 755 Monroe St. Once we had display cases, we rapidly expanded our offerings. We began offering breakfast pastries, pies, cheesecakes, individual French-style dessert pastries, espresso, coffee, teas, and cakes, pies and cheesecakes by the slice for the first time. We had 12 employees at the beginning of this new chapter. People started to discover us, and we quickly outgrew the production and storage space in our small building. So in 2004 we converted a nearby warehouse into a commercial kitchen and moved the production part of the business into that building, The good people of Eugene really started discovering us in 2005, and we kept getting busier and busier over the years. We opened another smaller retail location near the University of Oregon in 2016. We now have around 80 employees, and we are as busy as ever! It’s been so wonderful to serve delicious desserts to Eugene for 33 years now. We are so grateful to our customers for giving us this opportunity to live the Sweet Life for so many years!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Having a business that does daily production 7-days a week, 363 days a year has never been an easy path. It’s been a lot of work, renovation, coordination, hiring, training, putting out fires, managing employees, and fixing equipment(something is always breaking, of course). So, never a dull moment for us, even during slow weeks.
A few of the bigger struggles:
My sister and I used to have a fair number of disagreements, sometimes arguments about the business. We are very different, and we have different opinions, which is to be expected. Over the years, we’ve gotten better at resolving our disagreements in a healthier way.
When we opened our second location, when we weren’t as busy as we had hoped, so we had to struggle for a few years with limited income.
The pandemic was another difficult time. Being open to the public, managing the issues of employee and customer safety, achieving adequate staffing when so many people had to quarantine with symptoms, and having many employees quit during the beginning of the pandemic were some of the most difficult times to keep our business open and in compliance with the rules. We were fortunate to be among the recipients of the federal stimulus Payroll Protection Program loans which helped us stay afloat financially during the worst part of the pandemic.
The last big struggle that affected many aspects of the business was the death of my husband in 2023. He was an employee at Sweet Life for several years, and many of our employees and our customers knew him. It was a huge shock to everyone, especially to our immediate family. I became a solo parent of teenage boys, and I had to juggle parenting, grieving, and upholding my role at Sweet Life. It has been the most difficult time of my life. Now, 3 years later, everything has gotten a bit easier, my boys are able to do more for themselves, and I’ve been more able to fulfill my responsibilities with the business.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Sisters Catherine and Cheryl Reinhart started Sweet Life Patisserie in 1993, creating wedding and birthday cakes in their converted-garage-bakery in the Whiteaker neighborhood of Eugene, Oregon. In 1999, they opened their bakery and pastry shop on Monroe Street. The bakery quickly outgrew the shop, and was moved nearby to a custom-built spacious kitchen in 2004. An extensive remodel of the shop into a cafe followed later that same year.
Business stayed steady and sweet, and soon they opened up the “Petite” location in 2016, on East 19th street just a few blocks away from the University. Sweet Life Petite showcases a slightly smaller selection of the same delicious treats in a beautiful, jewel-box store. They are nestled between a local ice creamery and a new pizza place, and they happily serve students and University area residents alike!
These days, a team of bakers and decorators turn out pastries around the clock. Sweet Life’s cakes, pastries and desserts are lovingly hand-made from scratch, using both traditional French and classic American recipes. The display cases are full of desserts, cakes, pies, tarts, cookies, ice cream and sweet and savory breakfast and lunch pastries. The bright and bustling atmosphere attracts gregarious customers who don’t mind waiting shoulder to shoulder with other dessert fans on busy weekend nights. The adept baristas help guide people through the dazzling array of options. They will also make a fine latte or a pot of organic tea to go with dessert.
The sisters work daily behind the scenes, dreaming up fabulous desserts and other baked goods, and finding new ways to make their business more community-oriented and earth-friendly.
What matters most to you?
Being a great employer and creating a healthy and supportive work environment has always been at the top of my list. I’m proud that we pay our employees well, offer good benefits, and that we have good relationships with our employees. Many of our employees have become true friends and like family over the years. I’m so grateful to them for the amazing work they do. We have a truly wonderful team of great humans.
The other thing that matters to me is creating high quality delicious goodies!
Pricing:
- $7.25/slice of anything
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sweetlifedesserts.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweetlifepatisserie/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SweetLifePatisserie/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sweet-life-patisserie-eugene
