Meet Alex Roncal: Mama & Baker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alex Roncal and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alex, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Starting a small bakery business was never something I really thought about. I loved watching cooking shows, when I was younger, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life I considered culinary school and instead chose fashion design school. I started baking for my day job’s internal company events. It started out simple and straight from the box. I started to experiment slowly, making frosting from scratch, then cookie and cake recipes. Before I knew it everything was my own recipe, and my coworkers couldn’t get enough, they suggested I start to sell my creations. At the time I already had another small clothing business, two young children, and that full time day job. But that didn’t stop me, I started Bakery Two Nine. There was just something different about the time and effort I put into the baking and then watching someone’s reaction when they would take a bite – it simply brought me joy.

What should our readers know about your business?
Bakery Two Nine is not just a small business for me. It never was, but in the last year it became even more meaningful. In June of 2020, like most people I was feeling pretty helpless in many ways and the unknown of everyday life was a bit overwhelming. I read about a nationwide bake sale, Bakers Against Racism. The goal was to raise money for an organization of your choice battling social and racial injustice selling whatever baked goods you wanted to make. I wanted to pick a local organization and within the same week I discovered Chef Roy Choi’s ChewBox BLM Kitchen providing free meals to black and brown families in Watts. It was a perfect fit and an immediate action of the bake sale money – we were able to provide 80 meals. I knew I wanted to continue to give back to the community and decided from that moment on 20% of our monthly profits will be donated to an organization/charity I believe in. In the last 12 months our donations have gone to Shape Up the Vote, the Dolores Huerta Foundation, No Us Without You, South Bay Junior Women’s Club and the It Gets Better Project. 
I love that I can make people happy with my sweet creations and I love that I can help the community at the same time.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d like to dedicate this shoutout to my coworkers at MaCher in Venice, my family and friends – they all deserve credit for pushing me, taste testing, spreading the love and ultimately ordering from me.

Website: www.bakerytwonine.com

Instagram: instagram.com/bakerytwonine

Facebook: facebook.com/BakeryTwoNine