VIP Treats and Sweets

By Anni Caporuscio

VIP Treats and Sweets fresh baked bread is in high demand. The bread hits the shelves at 2 p.m., she says, so go then for the freshest loaves.

This bakery is the real thing; in every sense of the word. Marlana Patterson has opened a real honest-to-goodness full-service working bakery in the Safeway shopping center in Kapa‘a.

VIP Treats and Sweets is like a baked good workshop with the smells of fresh baked bread and cinnamon leaking out the front door and a thin dusting of flour on an old functional scale. There’s a case full of cinnamon rolls and sticky buns, rolls of sticky sweetness next to fat muffins and scones. And she has a cold case sporting a creamy cheesecake (the tall creamy kind topped with colorful fruits), a dutch apple pie with layer upon layer of thinly sliced apples, and real cream puffs, the kind that are actually too tall to get into your mouth but you’re going to give it the old college try anyway.

In short: I’m excited about this. I’m excited that Marlana is a self-started woman entrepreneur who has built her business from the ground up. There is a special place in my heart for woman entrepreneurs following dreams.

Fresh malasadas! Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 7 a.m.-2 p.m.! Get them while they last. These are the traditional malasadas, a dense, spongey dough on the inside, unfilled and crisp on the outside. The only concession to modern standards is that they’re rolled in cinnamon sugar.

Marlana is a 25-year Kaua‘i resident who moved to the island after Hurricane ‘Iniki as a union carpenter and stayed to make a life for herself and her children. A self-taught baker, she worked at various restaurants and bakeries and always dreamed of having her own place. Marlana started out with a few wholesale accounts working out of the Common Ground kitchen.

But came a time when she decided to quit just dreaming of having her own place and make this dream a reality. She opened her own storefront location, selling wholesale baked goods to restaurants and serving walk-in customers as well. f

I’m excited that everything is made from scratch. Every dough, every drizzle, every icing, every loaf of bread, every crumble: Everything is made from scratch. Marlana moves with her imagination and creates whatever comes to mind. Over time, she has perfected some recipes that are now the most popular in the store, such as her sourdough bread, made from a 4-year-old culture. And her wholegrain bread, for which she insists on using real honey instead of sugar. If you have an idea of something you’d like to see — and eat — talk to Marlana, and you guys can daydream. Think: cookies, chiffon, pie, dinner rolls, loaves of bread, cakes, focaccia, English muffins and everything else.

I am charmed by this old-fashioned, working scale Marlana uses to measure flour and powders. VIP is part walk-up bakery, part wholesale and part workshop for all things baked.

I’m excited about baked goods in general, including malasadas! That’s right, fresh, traditional, made to order malasadas! On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 7 a.m.-2 p.m. (or until she runs out) she will fry doughy hot cinnamon-sugary malasadas that are crisp on the outside and squishy and dense on the inside. Additionally, everyday she has grab-and-go sandwiches, breakfast sandwiches and stuffed ciabatta rolls, a quick and easy breakfast. And she serves brewed coffee from Imua Coffee Roasters.

Formerly a one-woman operation, VIP Treats and Sweets is expanding into a more robust walk-up eatery, and is enlarging the wholesale offerings, making customized goods for whatever your business needs. Find her focaccia at Kaua‘i Pasta and her breads and hamburger buns at various locations such as Paniolo, Avalon and Happy Talk Lounge, to name a few.

Find VIP Treats and Sweets at 4-439 Kuhio Hwy., in the Safeway Shopping Center in Kapa‘a. Open Monday-Saturday from 6:30 a.m.-4 p.m., and baking the whole time. Call Marlana and staff at 635-8218 to talk wholesale, or to dream your next baked good craving.

Anni Caporuscio is a food lover and can be found daily at her Kapa‘a business, Small Town Coffee.

Marlana Patterson, owner and operator of VIP Treats and Sweets, would love Kaua‘i to know everything in her bakery is made from scratch and with love. And it shows.