Yahshi Bakes – Yahshimabet Sellassie
#057 – Today we talk to Yahshimabet Sellassie, Founder & CEO of Yahshi Bakes, an Oakland bakery founded in 2015 when she was 12 years old. Yahshi Bakes makes handcrafted, organic pastries from locally sourced ingredients, featuring the warming spices and flavors of her Ethiopian and Jamaican heritage – so lots of vanilla, cardamom, brown butter, coffee, ginger, chocolate, and more.
“I’ve always loved being in the kitchen. And so I knew from a young age that I wanted to have a cafe, and I naturally just found myself starting Yahshi Bakes because I couldn’t keep myself out of the kitchen.”
Yahshimabet followed the lead of her entrepreneurial parents. They told her – if there’s something you love doing, make it into a business. At age 7, she became seriously interested in learning how to cook and bake, making something new for her family to enjoy most weekends. By age 12 she was on Food Network – when most kids were at basketball and soccer practice, she was in a cooking competition on national TV.
“Being on Food Network at 12 years old was super exciting for me. I always dreamed of being on Food Network. It was one of my favorite channels to watch, and I used to make videos in my kitchen acting like I was on the show, so it was super exciting to be on there and cross that off of my bucket list sooner than I expected to. It was just really amazing to feel like I had the platform to share what I love doing with the world and reach an international audience of people.”
The pandemic shutdown unveiled the unpredictability of pop-ups and led Yahshimabet to develop a subscription box – starting with pastries and moving to cookies. Surprisingly, she has a good amount of sales in New York so the subscription box allows her to reach those customers.
“I did a trial in October through December of 2022, and I was able to learn that the subscription model is actually a really good direction for Yahshi Bakes, and it allows me to have guaranteed sales in a way that popups haven’t always allowed, like with the pandemic.”
Be sure to listen until the end to hear how Yahshimabet’s own dietary challenges led her to launch Yahshi Bakes.
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