BEST OF CHATHAM
THE SWEET SPOT BY GRACE MILLER
Yeraldyn, who worked with Jodi for three years at The Phoenix Bakery, manages social media and customer service for Cravings. She moved to Pittsboro when she was in middle school and remembers her own experiences of walking home through downtown after getting out of class at Horton to get ice cream from S&T’s Soda Shoppe. “I would like to be a trusted destination for kids to walk to [in] town, like I did,” she says. “A place to go and get a treat and see friends. Hopefully they will have fond memories of Cravings for years to come!” Iliana worked at the bakery for a year under Danielle, the previous manager. She focuses on baking and business development and recently made the move from Sanford to Pittsboro. “I really like alk into Carolina Cravings Co. and the community,” she says. “It’s very you’ll hear the industrial mixer friendly, … and I love the downtown.” humming along as Yeraldyn Yeraldyn and Iliana also have a booth Martinez and Iliana Escalante fill at the Chatham Mills Farmers Market on shelves with baked goods. Treats like Saturday mornings as a way to further pan dulce and café con leche that stir up connect with locals. They want customers childhood memories of family and fun “not to come and get treats, but to get for Yeraldyn, like the mornings that she treated,” Yeraldyn says. She adds that would often spend with her grandparents the recent addition of a freezer chest will in Zacatecas, Mexico. allow them to sell more beverages. “We Yeraldyn and Iliana took over the are trying to expand it with coffee,” business in February from previous she says. They are also toying with the partners Jodi Hackney of The possibility of developing a Phoenix Bakery, Jimmy Stubbs restaurant with savory food Winning a readers’ of Allen & Son Bar-B-Que and options, like tacos, as well as favorite award Danielle Rose. The baking duo adding indoor seating. for desserts continue to create the original Their lives continue to and pastries is just icing on recipes of the shop – the popular grow both professionally the strawberry pie bars, muffins and no-bake and personally – Iliana is tres leches cake (left) peanut butter-chocolate cookies, expecting her first child for Carolina among others – in addition to – and the pair are excited Cravings treats like flan, bolillos, tres about the bakeshop’s future. Co. owners Yeraldyn leches cake and conchas that “Everything keeps on falling Martinez and are familiar in Spanish-speaking into place at the right time,” Iliana Escalante (right). communities. Yeraldyn says.
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CHATHAM MAGAZINE
SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2021