A Sweet Boutique for Bespoke Cakes Is Coming to Kearny Mesa

A new bakery that’s currently in construction will bring custom cakes and carefully-crafted desserts and pastries to Kearny Mesa. Fueled by a Kickstarter campaign that’s almost halfway funded, Flour Atelier is the evolution of a home bakery business that began more than three years ago.

An alum of USD and a native of San Diego, founder Chrisell Nguyen launched her custom cake company called DIY Selly after being laid off in 2018. Through word of mouth and the power of social media, the self-taught baker soon became inundated with orders for her themed birthday and wedding cakes as well as trendy monogram cakes — oversized letters and numbers fashioned from cake or puff pastry and extravagantly decorated with fruit, cream, and flowers.

As demand rose and she outgrew her home kitchen, Nguyen found a storefront to expand into near Mitsuwa Marketplace in the Hawthorne Crossings complex. Renamed Flour Atelier, the bakery is currently scheduled to open at the beginning of October.

Besides Nguyen’s signature large-scale cakes, the bakery will also specialize in smaller desserts and pastries including cookies, cheesecakes, and danishes. The menu will include sweets that reflect her Filipino heritage, from turon to ube leche flan and bibinka cupcakes, as well as some inspired by the upbringing of co-owner Evelyn Ozburn, a real estate professional with experience in interior architecture and floral design, who was born and raised in Okinawa, Japan.

Flour Atelier

Nguyen, who tells Eater that she and Ozburn hope to open multiple bakery locations, says that the takeout-focused bakery will also offer Japanese teas and lattes featuring Asian flavors.