I’ve been tasked with finding the perfect pink cookie by my four-year-old daughter. I warned her that bakeries don’t always have pink cookies, but standing in front of the long counter, I’m suddenly stumped by all of the options. Suddenly, it’s not a question of whether I’ll find a pink cookie but how I will be able to narrow the options down.
There’s a hot pink macaron with Fruity Pebbles as sprinkles on top. A cookie decorated with pink icing that has strawberry jam on the inside. And I spot a bright pink doughnut out of the corner of my eye.
They all look delicious, and they’re all from different bakers with memberships at Little Blue Bakehouse, a charming bakery adjacent to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema theater in Southeast Raleigh.
Little Blue Bakehouse owners Allison and Carl Vick opened the bakery nearly three years ago when Allison, who runs the macaron business Little Blue Macaron, began to outgrow the Raleigh commercial kitchen that she worked out of. That space, she says, housed around 100 different businesses.
“It’s chaotic,” she says. “We were just doing whatever we could to get bigger, but there’s only so much you can grow in those spaces.”
Frustrated, the couple began looking for retail space, only to find out that the roughly 1,000 square feet that they’d need for a macaron and coffee business would be a large financial burden that they didn’t think they’d be able to swing.
“We would have had to make, like, 15,000 macarons a week,” Carl says of what it would have taken to make things work.
But even before all this, the Vicks had kicked around the idea of a business like Little Blue Bakehouse, in which they’d put up the up-front investment to build out the space but would share it with other bakers. After talking with their potential landlord, they decided to go for it, committing to a space just over 3,000 square feet.
Here, there is room for Allison’s macarons as well as for four other bakers. A picture window in the front gives customers a view into the 2,000-square-foot commercial kitchen, and there’s a bakery and coffee shop in the front.
This isn’t just a commercial kitchen. It’s a space for bakers to both work and sell products out of. They each have a case up front to sell their sweet treats, access to the kitchen 24/7, and mentorship from Allison and Carl. The bakers pay a monthly membership fee and a small commission on each sale but get to skip out on the stress of finding enough capital to open a shop on their own.
The Little Blue Bakehouse pictured on Wednesday, June 11, 2025 in Raleigh. The Little Blue Bakehouse serves coffee, baked and sweet goods from multiple bakers who share the same building. 
Macarons from Little Blue Macaron are displayed at the Little Blue Bakehouse, which serves coffee, baked and sweet goods from multiple bakers who share the same building on Wednesday, June 11, 2025, in Raleigh. 
Madison Guthrie, owner of Yellow Garden Bake Shop, rolls out sugar cookie dough at Little Blue Bakehouse on Wednesday, June 11, 2025 in Raleigh. The Little Blue Bakehouse serves coffee, baked and sweet goods from multiple bakers who share the same building. 
Andrew McCook, owner of The Blue Ox Bakery, replenishes his display at Little Blue Bakehouse on Wednesday, June 11, 2025 in Raleigh. The Little Blue Bakehouse serves coffee, baked and sweet goods from multiple bakers who share the same building.
“You’re looking at 150–200 [thousand dollars], even if it’s a preexisting restaurant or café, in terms of startup fees and outfitting and stuff, so it’s really, really expensive and a very significant financial risk [opening your own retail store],” Allison notes. This is one of the challenges that small businesses face when trying to figure out how to scale.
She also points out that it’s often more expensive to rent a smaller space versus a large one, one of the issues the Vicks encountered before deciding to open the larger space. The membership fees help pay some of the lease and help offset some of the Vicks’ financial risk.
It’s a mutually beneficial situation, the Vicks say, pointing out that the business model was what made it possible to open a space in the first place and helps them stay open.
“The idea is that these businesses can kind of use [the space] as a stepping stone in between figuring out, like, being a home baker or being a baker in a commercial kitchen and doing pop-ups all the time to pivoting to having a retail space but not having to invest fully in a brick-and-mortar right off the bat,” Allison says.
“We can help create more small businesses and more opportunities for small businesses,” she continues, “but also it’s more likely that our business will survive because we have a diverse type of product.”
On any given day, there are about 60 different types of baked goods available across all of the display cases, which means it’s likely that every customer can find something that they like.
Right now, you’ll find Allison’s macarons, croissants and doughnuts from The Blue Ox Bakery, mini cheesecakes from Gryffin Bakeshop, a range of gluten-free treats from Sweet Nothings Bakery and Café, and cookies and more from Yellow Garden Bake Shop. Sprinkled in among the bakers’ specialty items, you’ll find a range of brownies, bars, cupcakes, and other cheat-worthy finds.
It’s possible that you’ll find too many things that you want, like I did. After waffling, I went for the pink macaron and cookie—and a brownie for good measure—supporting three different bakers in the process. All three were a hit, especially the cookie with strawberry jam in the middle, which tasted like a Pop-Tart.
“In this space, you can support up to five small businesses at one time with your dollar,” Carl reminds me. “It makes a big difference.”
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