New Dayton bakery is a lifelong dream of mother, daughter

Now the mother-daughther duo is poised to open their own bakery together: Say Yes Cakes. The new bakery is located at 2920 Wayne Ave. at Arbor Avenue, near Dayton Metro Library’s Belmont branch. The space previously housed Old Dayton Style Dixie Fried Chicken, which shut down in the spring of 2019. As of early this week, plans called for Say Yes Cakes to open Wednesday, July 22.

Jennifer, who lives in Miamisburg, called her daughter, who lives in Spring Valley, “my right hand in the bakery adventure.”

Both mother and daughter started young in developing their love for baking.

“I started when I was 10,” Coyle said. “After Mom cleaned up from supper, she would let me bake if I cleaned up after myself. I started with cakes and cookies. By the time I was 12, I was making proper cream puffs, perfectly flaky pie crust, buttercream frosting, and more. I was always challenging myself to make technically difficult treats.”

Birthday cakes were another matter, at least at first.

“My children got beautifully decorated bakery cakes for their birthdays until they started asking me to make their cakes for them,” Coyle said. “They weren’t pretty, but they were always delicious. Soon their friends also wanted my ugly but delicious cakes for their birthdays.”

“My mom once told me that, if I could make my cakes pretty, I should feel obligated to open a bakery and share what I do.”

Jennifer’s mom passed away in 2018, but her words kept echoing in Jennifer’s ears.

“On my birthday in January 2019, I looked over at my daughter and asked her whether she would work for me if I started a bakery,” Coyle said. “She replied, ‘Heck yeah!’ We started baking cakes and decorating them to take pictures. We couldn’t eat all those cakes so we gave them to family and friends until we had made 20. At that time, we made the Say Yes Facebook page with all our pictures in the gallery and started taking orders.”

“It was slow. Alyson suggested we use a flea market as a marketing tool. We took our pictures and some cupcakes we baked to hopefully get people to try our stuff, love it, and order cakes. It worked! It wasn’t long until I realized I needed her. She had a lot of great ideas and is very skilled at keeping our cakes current in design. She is perfect at editing our cakes to keep them clean and beautiful. I knew I needed her as more than an employee. She became my partner.”

“We quickly got overwhelmed and started looking for our brick-and-mortar location. We knew we wanted to be a community bakery that sells delicious treats and also decorates cakes. We were ecstatic when we found our location on Wayne Avenue.”

Say Yes Cakes will offer both traditional and distinctive cupcake and cake flavors, including pineapple upside down, pink lemonade, strawberry crunch, peach cobbler, pecan pie, and watermelon. It will also serve cookies, cake pops, pies and brownies.

Initially, the bakery will offer carryout only, but plans call for adding a few tables and chairs later, Coyle said. Hours will be Wednesday through Friday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

“We are starting simple but have plans for some unique international treats that we love and some old family recipes that we can’t wait to share,” Coyle said.