Public Health Expert Becomes Pastry Entrepreneur

Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, after losing her high-level government job, Empress Edwards-EL went from a nationally-known public health expert to owning a pastry shop in the Lloyd Center Mall.

“I was still working full-time this year, but with the new president I received a layoff notice,” Edwards said. “I had a DEI job (diversity, equity and inclusion),” a field that President Trump notoriously came out as against.

Business is okay at Yummy Empire, Edwards said, but it could be better.

“It’s a good place for start-ups and to keep some money in owners’ pockets, but the mall management is not promoting us at all, not even a sign that we’re open during construction,” she said.

With El in her name reflecting her Moorish heritage, Edwards said got the idea for Yummy Empire while teaching her 16-year-old twin daughters, Olivia and Gracie, how to create traditional dessert recipes, like sweet potato pie and peach cobbler, and she then opened a website where people could pre-order.

Business was so good that she rented a commercial kitchen and sold treats like the pies, banana pudding, strawberry pizza and walnut chocolate chip cookies.

“We use no bleached flour or white sugar,” she said. “Only good quality ingredients, so everything is homemade from scratch.”

As chance would have it, one day when Edwards was at the Lloyd Center, she noticed that a former Cinnabon store had closed while she was eating burgers with her girls in the food court, when a friend happened by and encouraged her to take over the Cinnabon space.

“I contacted (mall) management and took it from there,” she said. “My daughters are back in school now and traffic is slow, but there’s not enough business to hire someone, and I need to grow the business so I can sustain a household.”

Edwards has also expanded her menu to include ground beef tacos, milkshakes, Italian sodas, espresso and ice cream by the scoop, using family recipes.

“Everything is like mama and them made,” she said. “I’m a picky eater, and we like to be a place where you can come and get it the way you want it — we can even put strawberries in your banana pudding.”

Edwards has a degree in business administration and over 22 years in public health for state and county health departments, dealing with HIV and chronic disease management and wellness.

“I was on Montel and Oprah, on the cover of the Portland Observer, and in Cosmopolitan, sat on planning councils, advocated for youth-based programs out of Wahington, DC, was instrumental in getting comprehensive sex education in schools, and worked with immigrants and built programs through the Albina Ministerial Alliance,” she said.

Her last government job was with the Washington State Department of Health, and it’s been a struggle since then, but one Edwards believes she can handle.

“A theme of my life is taking a bad situation and turning it into opportunities, from growing up with a parent struggling with addiction, to getting diagnosed with a chronic illness,” she said.

Edwards originally named her store Yummy Treats, but switched to Yummy Empire when she found the original name had been trademarked, but she can still be found on Instagram under yummytreats911 and can be reached by email at yummytreats911@gmail.com.

But to be profitable, said Edwards’ friend Latina McCord, another Black businesswoman who owns Latina’s Style of Elegance dress shop at the Lloyd Center, agrees that business needs to pick up, and the mall management could do a lot more to advertise the small businesses trying to make ends meet, especially those that are Black-owned.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on, small businesses doing pop-ups and trade shows, but it’s mostly Caucasian, and Black people don’t know there are still stores here for them,” McCord said. “I had a store at NE 13^th Ave. and Alberta for three years, but a lot of people don’t know I’m here at the Lloyd Center.”

McCord said a lot of white people come in her store from a nearby hotels, but mall management doesn’t advertise at them as it once did before the mall’s big box stores closed.

“I would love to see my old customers come back, but with Nordstrum’s being torn down, people don’t know that what’s keeping the mall afloat are small businesses, and we’ve been there all along.”