For Kristal Bryant, it’s always been about family. Even the name of her business, K&J’s Elegant Pastries points to that: K for herself, and J to denote her husband’s and kids’ first initial. At her custom cakes and pastry shop, Bryant makes beautiful and scrumptious treats to share with the Birmingham community— and beyond. Over the last 13 years, she’s grown her business from a side hustle to a full-time thriving company with a new location and big plans. As a mom of three, she has one mantra though: family always comes first.

Details

K&J’s Elegant Pastries
2260 9th Ave. N
Birmingham, AL 35203
KjsElegantPastries.com

Babypalooza: Tell us a little bit about how you started your business.

Kristal Bryant: I initially started my business from home about 13 years ago. I was working as a line cook and a chef and wanted to do something different. In restaurants you can’t be as creative, so that’s how I started doing cakes. I was making them for my nieces and cousins as a side job. Once I got some customers, I quit my restaurant job. I’d also just had my second baby and I wanted to still be able to do storytime and play dates and all of that, and I was able to balance that with making cakes from home. In 2013, we took the at-home business to our first storefront, which was a really small shop. We stayed there for three and a half years and then we moved to First Street in Alabaster, and that’s when we added the milkshakes (Kollosal crazy shakes with cupcakes and add-ins) and really became known. I never did anything major as far as promoting or advertising, it was all word of mouth. The milkshakes really helped us get the name out. People started seeing them spreading over social media and that’s how it became K&J as it is today.

Babypalooza: You have a new Birmingham location in Uptown near the BJCC. How has that been going and why did you choose that location to expand your business?

Kristal Bryant: It’s been great. Even though we were busy in Alabaster, we’re about 20 times busier here. We originally signed the lease in 2019 as a second location, and then COVID hit and everybody had to pivot. When things started to open back up, we realized the Alabaster store was too small to socially distance and we made the decision to close it. At first I felt like the Uptown area didn’t have a lot going on, but Zebby Carney from Eugene’s Hot Chicken—which is right next to our store—kept saying it would be great. Then we heard about the new City Walk [urban park] coming and it was a no-brainer. We thought, if City Walk is coming, and The World Games is coming, this will be the area where everything will be going on. The stadium was also in talks at the time, and all these things were coming together. Our original date for the store was last year, but the ultimate goal was to be open before The World Games [in July 2022]. So we opened in April and it’s been going great.

Babypalooza: Have you expanded your offerings with the bigger space there?

Kristal Bryant: We’ll be adding lunch soon. We will do sandwiches, like chicken salad and hot panini-type sandwiches on croissants.

Babypalooza: What is the long-term vision for your business?

Kristal Bryant: We are looking for another location to bring it back to Shelby County, but the ultimate goal is focused on the quality of the business. I don’t have a vision of having 500 stores. My idea would be to have a couple stores where the space is still local, but to be able to ship out
of those stores worldwide. Once we get everything settled in the new location, we’re going to work on setting up an online store where people can purchase from us. We have so many people that travel to us and ask, ‘Do you ship?’ So I feel like that would be the best way to keep the quality of the business and make sure that it is still my vision of being hands-on.

Babypalooza: What are your top three treats that you make?

Kristal Bryant: The first would be the sweet potato cupcake. It is still my absolute favorite of everything. Second would be a warm chocolate chip cookie because a lot of people don’t even know that we do cookies. And then I would say our pralines-and-cream ice cream.

Babypalooza: You also cater, right?

Kristal Bryant: Yes, we do catered treats, but the custom cakes are really our babies. On a week-to-week basis, we do anywhere from 30 to 40 different cakes. And every week we have at least four or five baby showers at minimum. We do sweets tables for a lot of baby showers. We offer things like parfait shooters, which come in flavors like banana pudding, strawberry shortcake, key lime, peach cobbler. We also do custom cookies, cake pops, dipped pretzels and fruits. We do a lot of things local but we also do a lot out of town. I cater in Atlanta and we just recently had weddings in Miami and Nashville.

Babypalooza: In addition to being an entrepreneur, you’re also a mom.

Kristal Bryant: I have three kids. My oldest daughter is 19 and she’s in college. Then we have a 14-year-old, and we just had a baby born in May.

Babypalooza: Oh wow, so you were pregnant while opening the new location? How was that?

Kristal Bryant: It was a lot of work! My husband and I were the general contractors for the downtown location. We had an architect draw up the plans, but as far as coming up with the vision of how it’s going to look and overseeing the project—we did all of that. And I did all of that while being pregnant. We opened the store in April and the baby came on May 30. So we opened a new store four weeks before we had a new baby. We took a few weeks off and have been super thankful for our staff because we had to leave them running a brand new store without us being there, but they’ve done really well.

Babypalooza: How do you balance being a business owner with being a mom?

Kristal Bryant: It’s very tough. A good part of it is that my older kids work at the bakery too. My husband works for the railroad but also works at the bakery. It’s a family business, so we get to spend a lot of time there. But I always make sure that anything my kids do still comes first to me. I don’t ever put the business first, even though it keeps us super busy. I would show up to track meets and games in a chef uniform. It’s really tough to balance it out sometimes, but I always make sure the bakery works around what they want to do. Even with the new baby, I returned to work for The World Games and he was with us. We have a little bassinet in the store for him. They’ve all grown up there and it’s their business too. So we balance it out by all working there as a family.

Babypalooza: Love that. So how do you make time for yourself with all of this?

Kristal Bryant: Laughs What self time? I typically have one day off, but most of the time I have to do something for the business. I wouldn’t say I really have self time but it’s not anything that I miss either. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s not something I feel like I have to have because my family is that important to me. I’m already a super busy person with everything related to the bakery, so with the time that I have left, that revolves around family.

Babypalooza: What tips and tricks can you share with other mompreneurs?

Kristal Bryant: I would say just don’t get frustrated. I know that it’s so tough having to balance everything and not really having time for yourself, but make sure you do a little something for yourself. Don’t wear yourself out. Don’t overexert yourself because then it will take away from the kids, it will take away from your business. Try to stay focused on your family and try to stay focused on your business just as much. But I’m always going to put my family first. And with that, I feel like everything else just falls into place