by TM Petaccia

One thing immediately became obvious when Charlotte pastry chef Jossie Lukacik went on her own to create custom wedding cakes in 2017. “I needed to pay my rent and I knew I couldn’t,” she says. So she began to sublease out her kitchen space to other bakers. Seven years later, that side gig is now the business’s main revenue stream — and continues to expand.

Operating under two entities located in the Oakhurst area on Monroe Road, Sweet Spot Studio and Sweet Spot Kitchen have been the launching point for more than 50 baking businesses, many of whom have moved on to their own spaces — including Verdant Bread, Whisk + Wood, and Alexandra’s Bakery — and is currently home to The Accidental Baker, Cakeable, and a number of other budding businesses.

“It turns out renting out kitchen space is a really needed business,” Lukacik says. “It’s just so insane for independent bakeries to get started.”

To meet growing demand, Lukacik has acquired a second space in the Ayrsley area with a focus on larger, more permanent baking tenants. “It’s a step above what we offer in our standard commercial kitchen,” she says. “In the current kitchen, we have to put as many people in there as possible to make money. In the new space, we’re looking for a couple of bigger tenants who can have amenities like pick-up windows and a more private kitchen area without it being a full-out shared-use kitchen. This will allow people to scale up and see if they want to stay or if they want their own space.”

While the Oakhurst space currently houses 15 businesses, the new Ayrsley location is intended to house three to four larger businesses. “We want to create more private environments akin to what you would get with a storefront,” Lukacik says.

Both Sweet Spot spaces are designed to accommodate “low hazardous, low risk” foods, which, while requiring adherence to Department of Agriculture regulations, don’t require city health inspections. These businesses include bakers, ice cream makers, and spice blend creators.

“It’s just much easier to operate from a practical standpoint,” Lukacik says. “The kitchen stays a lot cleaner and safer because you’re not dealing with any proteins.”

One of the initial cores of the Sweet Spot businesses, baking classes, will continue at the original location. Just wrapping up a professional bakers series, the company has published its latest schedule of consumer baking classes, which tend to sell out quickly.

Also moving to a larger scale is Lukacik’s own baking business, which now consists of primarily large-scale corporate orders, including a cookie partnership with Kate Spade.

“I reached out to them earlier this year because I love their novelty purses, and that has now turned into a full corporate partnership,” she says. “We’ve got 1,200 cookies going out to them, shipping up and down the East Coast.”

Sweet Spot also has a corporate arrangement with Honeywell. “Honeywell is actually awesome in the sense the people who manage their buildings and such are encouraged to purchase from local vendors.”

The company has also contracted to do all the cake decorating for The Accidental Baker.

“We’re trying to diversify our revenue streams,” Lukacik says. “It’s a nicer way to grow than selling a dozen cookies at a time.”