In a city known for its love of good coffee and pastries, Sugar Bakery has quietly become a beloved staple—one buttery croissant at a time. What began nearly two decades ago on Madison Street has grown into a three-location gem, thanks to the passion and vision of current owner Quynh “Queen” La Walton, who took the reins nine years ago after working her way up from employee to entrepreneur.
In this interview, Queen shares how she fell in love with baking (spoiler: The Great British Bake Off played a role), what makes each Sugar Bakery location special, and why supporting small, local businesses is more vital than ever. From flaky handmade croissants to pandan coconut muffins and wedding-worthy cakes, everything at Sugar is made from scratch—and served with joy.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Hi everybody, my name is Quynh, the owner of Sugar Bakery. We have three locations, and right now we are in our newest location on 320 East Pine.
So, what are you serving at Sugar Bakery?
We are serving handmade pastry. We make everything from scratch, daily at our First Hill location in 1014 Madison, that is our original location. It’s been there for 19 years.
And where is your second location?
My second location is at 110 Republican. It is a beautiful location in an expo building. You can see the Space Needle from our second location in Lower Queen Anne. You can see the fireworks on like New Year’s Eve. It’s like the most amazing thing ever.
So you’ve been in operation for 19 years?
I actually was the employee of the previous owner, Stephanie. She owned Sugar Bakery for 10 years, and after 10 years, she wanted to retire. I was her employee, and she offered to sell the business to me. I was fresh out of school but we took the opportunity and we’ve been growing ever since, so I’ve been the owner of Sugar Bakery for the last nine years.
How did you get into baking? You said you were in school, but what sparked your interest in pastry?
So I always loved watching cooking shows, baking shows. The British Bake Off is one of my favorite shows. I watched every single episode three times. And then I went to school for culinary first in South Seattle Community College. And then after that I still didn’t feel fulfilled. So I went to school for Seattle Central, for the baking program at Seattle Central. And after the first day, I feel like that’s exactly where I belong.
How did you choose your third location? We’re here in Capitol Hill, so what made you pick this neighborhood?
So we have always been a fan of Capitol Hill. We have always been looking for a new opportunity and when we know that Cherry Street Coffee closed and it’s such a great location, my partner, Matt, he’s my business partner, found this location and introduced me to this space and as soon as I went touring it, I loved it and we feel like it’s so close to our First Hill location too. So in a way, I’m jokingly saying that I’ll be the new Asian Tom Douglas of Seattle. Because you know, Tom Douglas, he has all his locations within walking distance of his space, so I’ll do the same thing.
What are some of the most exciting things about being in the baking business? What do you love about it?
So first of all, I feel like baking is something I love to do even on my day off. So it doesn’t feel like work to me. It feel like I just show up to work, but actually having fun. So to me, it’s very rewarding feeding people the pastry that I make and getting compliment about it. I’ll just hear how much they love it.
I could talk about pastry all day. You won’t be able to shut me up about pastry. So again, to me, that is why I love doing it because it doesn’t seem like work. It seems like I’m being here, but I’m actually having fun and getting to meet new people, making friends.
What are some of the pastries that you that are most popular with customers and what do you recommend that somebody tries when they come in?
Oh that is a very good question. So we make our croissant from scratch. I love croissant. So I would definitely recommend a butter croissant, as simple as a butter croissant. I recommend a danish. We’re using seasonal fruit. Right now we’re doing peach with cream cheese and blueberry and cream cheese. We do switch up to something like lemon blueberry in the summertime or different fruit in the summertime. For muffin, I love our muffin because we rotate it weekly. My favorite is the pandan coconut. Pandan is a Southeast Asia flavor and it’s coconutty and vanilla-y. It’s amazing. Our newest addition to the menu is our breakfast croissant with scrambled egg, spinach, cheese, bacon, or veggie sausage. Those are really good. I mean I can keep going but I don’t think we have enough time for it!
I can see over here in this case that you also do cakes. So what do people need to know about cakes? People are always looking for a great place to get a cake.
We make everything from scratch, including cakes. Our cake sponge, our frosting, even our syrup. Our filling, everything from scratch. Our cake is made daily at our First Hill location. The most popular cake would be our pink champagne cake, our creme brulee cake. And you can’t go wrong with our New York style cheesecake. It’s vanilla cheesecake with lemon curd on top and fresh fruit. Right now we’re doing blueberry. Summertime, we switch it up to strawberry. Yeah, our cake is made with vanilla buttercream. It’s Swiss meringue buttercream, not our traditional American buttercream. So it’s not very sweet, but it’s very soft and fluffy. We do wedding cakes too in the summertime.
Why is it important to you to “spend like it matters” and support local, small businesses?
You really need small business because it’s the backbone of the city. There’s a lot of big companies out there but the small businesses actually support the actual people who live in the city and we try to create something special without a big funding behind us. We work really hard and we work from open to close seven days a week and never really stop working until we’ve done the job. To me, small business is super important and creates diversity, and you get to know the background of all these businesses. And every one is unique.
What do you want people to know about Sugar Bakery?
I want people to know and recognize that Sugar Bakery is a small business, but we make everything from scratch, and we take a lot of pride doing so. We just love serving people from Seattle, from outside Seattle. We just love doing what we do, and we will try to continue doing that and expand as much as we can and provide as many jobs as we can to people living in Seattle.