Today we’d like to introduce you to Letty Alvarez.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Letty. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My name is Letty Alvarez, daughter of Cuban Immigrants, mom to five, wife of 29 years to my best friend and business partner Eddie Dominguez. My story is a simple one. I started my family at the young age of 19, I never attended college and was a stay at home mom. I had an epiphany at the age of 37, I realized that I was unfulfilled as a human being. I loved my family life and husband but felt that something was missing in my life. I confessed to Eddie that I always dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur but never thought it was possible. I lacked a college education and was brought up to believe as a woman you had two choices in life (educate yourself and have a career or get married and become a mother). It was clear I had taken door number two. Eddie told me he believed I was capable of doing both and for the first time in my life, I believed it to be true. We took our family life savings of $5,000 and opened LA Sweetz on November 10th, 2008 during one of these countries’ worst recessions. Betting it all on ourselves was the boldest and scariest thing we ever did. We are 11 years now and have no regrets. We have seen much success and have sacrificed much of our time in order to achieve that success but we are grateful to still be in business and are in awe of how far we have come. We owe much of our success to our fans and patrons who have kept our American Dream alive all of these years.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
No risk, no reward. Business owners are constantly facing obstacles and challenges, that is the nature of the beast and we have seen our share of obstacles and challenges in the past eleven years. None, however, can measure up to the greatest challenge of all “Balance”. Being a business owner tends to consume you, it’s like your mind is on 24/7 and all you think about is how to enhance your product, how to better serve your customers, how to grow your market share, how to improve the bottom line, etc, etc. It’s hard to turn your business brain off. Balancing normal family life and marriage while owning/operating and growing your business has always been our biggest challenge. The key and the reason we have had a successful run at maintaining a healthy marriage and healthy family life while growing our business is that we started our business as a team. We talked about the burden of running a business with our children before we took the leap of faith and opened our doors. The kids were all on board from day one. We were #TeamLASweetz and every member of our family was there to help support each other and help carry the load as we grew.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
LA Sweetz is a gourmet cupcake and cake shop. We offer over 150 flavors on our menu and are known for being the first bakery to introduce our Original Guava cupcake locally in Miami and to the world globally on the syndicated program “Cupcake Wars”. I never imagined when Eddie and I first opened our doors in 2008 of the massive success and notoriety that our bakery would earn throughout the years. We have been featured on several culinary shows such as Food Network “Cupcake Wars”, The Cooking Channel “Unique Sweets & Sugar Showdown”, TLC “The Next Great Baker and Cakeboss” to name a few… I believe what has set us apart and has made us stand out to so many is the fact that we are relentless in the pursuit to make a consistently amazing moist cupcake and cake every single time. It’s easy to bake a moist cake some of the time, but to be consistently amazing for 11 years straight is quite the challenge and I am happy and proud we have maintained our products quality control and excellence throughout the years.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
There are so many people to thank that I would not be able to list all of their names. The first group of individuals you already know are my husband and children. They have always been my greatest cheerleaders. Our patrons would be the second group of people I would thank, for we would be nothing without them. It is because of their diehard support and constant love and fanaticism for our cupcakes that we continue to exist and grow and last but not least our internal LA Sweetz family of past and present employees. We have been many highschooler’s and college kid’s first job and it has been my greatest honor to have that title. Our employee’s dedication to customer service and to our family-run business has always filled me with great pride and we owe much of our success to their hard work and dedication.
Pricing:
- One Dozen Mini Cupcakes $18
- Rosette Cake $45
- Unicorn Cake $65
- Cupcake Tower – Price Varies (depending on quantity of cupcakes)
Contact Info:
- Address: LA Sweetz
6707 Main Street
Miami, FL 33014 - Website: lasweetz.com
- Phone: 3055581800
- Email: lalvarez@lasweetz.com
- Instagram: lasweetzofficial
- Facebook: lasweetzofficial
- Twitter: LASweetz_
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/la-sweetz-miami-lakes-2?start=40
- Other: https://lettyalvarez.samcart.com/products/moistcakes101
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