About the Owner, Mackenzie Simon
My name is Mackenzie Simon, I’m currently 19 years old and back on June, 1st of 2015 I bought this amazing little cupcake shoppe just 9 days after I graduated from Lake Hamilton High School. It was an incredible feat to take on, especially for an 18 year old. I had inconceivable standards to overcome and gigantic shoes to fill.
One night in March of 2015, as I was sitting at dinner, my parents were discussing selling the cupcake shop. They had opened the shop back in November of 2011 as kind of a spinoff from the soap shop, but enough on that (you can read more about it on the “About Us” page of the website. Anyway, they were overloaded with the opening of the new Bathhouse Soapery in Louisiana and of course Evilo, their olive oil and vinegar store, and decided that they had no more room to continue providing for the Cupcake Shoppe. As they were going through a list of potential store owners that they felt would be interested in the shop, my dad made a joke about selling the store to me. (As you know, that joke obviously became a reality).
At this point I had never dreamed of taking over. I had my goals: go to UofA, major in International Business, and then someday open up my very own Bathhouse Soapery because at the time I was the head soap maker there and it was my passion. Up until this exact point the dream to derail my entire life’s plan had never crossed my mind, but once the thought was in the air I just couldn't stop thinking about it. I latched on immediately.
They gave me two choices: attend college at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, which was a given since just a couple of week before we had: toured, enrolled, paid the deposit, and completed my housing because that's what I had planned to do since the 9th grade; or buy the forlorn Cupcake Shoppe. As if given a cue, the next day one of the bakers called in and there I was, beginning my first role in the rest of my life. In the next three months, I learned the ins and outs of the Cupcake Shoppe, from icing the cupcakes all the way to paying my monthly sales tax.
Since I’ve taken over, almost a complete year ago, I've come to realize that something happens everyday. Whether it be a dramatic something or a course-changing something, every day is significant and there is never a dull moment. I’ve made amazing friends already during this journey, I have and have had amazing employees some of which I’ve fired and some of which I’ve become extremely close to, I’ve stressed out over this shop (literally on a daily basis), I’ve cried over this shop (not on a daily basis but too frequently), but at this point I wouldn’t change anything.
