![]() So began her love affair with cake.īy the time she was a freshman at Harding High School in St. It was the most delicious thing she had eaten during her 12 years on Earth. It was a whipped cream marble cake - chocolate and vanilla.” It said, ‘Happy Birthday Mai Ker.’ It had purple frosting. “It was the most beautiful cake,” she said. She got to try birthday cake for the first time when she turned 12 in December 2004. “In school, I struggled to adjust and fit in.” Hang had to quickly learn English, which “was not an easy language for me to learn,” she said. In 2004, Hang and her family arrived in Minnesota. That day, he chose to eat nothing so I could have a birthday to remember.” I watched as my father searched in his pocket for money and found only enough to buy me new sandals and a little bun I could eat on my way to school. “I remember one year crying on my birthday because I knew I would not have a cake. “We were a very poor family, with very little money,” she said. After the war, the family fled to a refugee camp in Thailand, where Hang was born and spent her first 11 years. Hang’s father was a soldier in the “secret war” backed by the CIA in Laos during the Vietnam War. The couple, who live in Maplewood, have three young daughters: Liora, 5 Odilia, 3 and Sarai, 1. Hang and her husband, Tou Lee, spent three weeks in August at the company’s franchise headquarters in Dillon, Mont., learning all things Great Harvest - from fundamental baking to made-to-order baking to running a retail store. So I talked to Bonnie, and I said, ‘Bonnie, if someday you retire, can I carry on your legacy?’ I told her, ‘I assure you I will not fail you.’” From refugee camp to budding baker Mai Ker Hang puts a tray of Red White and Blueberry bread into the oven as owner Bonnie Alton looks on at the Great Harvest Bread Co. “I really love everything about the Great Harvest environment - how loose it is, how fun it is,” Hang said. Hang began helping Alton during the 2020 holiday season and said she “got hooked on the idea that I could combine these two businesses and own the bakery I have always wanted for my work.” She asked Alton to let her know if she ever decided to retire and sell the business the two began seriously talking about a sale in March. She is believed to be the first Hmong owner of a Great Harvest Bread Co. On Friday, Hang purchased the business from Alton. “I told myself, ‘If only this woman is my mentor, I will go a lot farther and grow a lot faster,’” Hang said. When Hang went to tour the bakery, she found Alton working in the back. The kitchen just sits empty at the end of the day.’” “I thought about it for a little bit, and I talked to Brian, my husband, about it, and I said, ‘You know, we can do this. “They had looked and looked, and everyone was saying ‘No’ to them,” Alton said. Would Alton consider renting out her Selby Avenue bakery in the evenings to Fruitee ‘n the Cake, Hang’s pop-up bakery business? The woman said she was helping her favorite baker, Mai Ker Hang, find a place to create her signature fruit-filled cakes. kitchen until she got a call one day in 2019. Bonnie Alton never considered sharing space in her Great Harvest Bread Co.
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