Life & Work with Joyce Watts of Kansas City

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joyce Watts

Hi Joyce, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born and raised in Kansas City Missouri, my mom was a single parent raising five children. My mom and dad were both entrepreneurs, and my mom was also a nurse. Growing up in Kansas city was great, we didn’t have much but family was very important.

I am a wife, a mom of three, and a grandmother (GiGi) of eight.

My two sisters and I started our baking journey back in 2005 when we purchased a small shop in Raytown and at that point Big Mommas Bakery was born, this was the beginning of my entrepreneur journey. We learned so much and we put in a lot of hard work, our children and spouses pitched in even if they didn’t want to. We became pretty famous for our large cinnamon rolls and buttery dinner rolls. In 2009 we were close to shutting our doors for good, the economy had taken a dive and we as a small business felt every bit of it. One of my sisters decided it was time to move on and that left my older sister and I to figure out what our next move would be.
Around that time we had a group of people show up to dine in, after they ordered just about everything on the menu, they told us they were sent there to bring us back with them to Halls Crown Center. My sister and I were floored we had no idea what we were going to do, so we jumped right in and we opened in the food court on the first floor at Halls Crown Center,

We had some of our best days at Crown Center, one Thanksgiving we sold over 1500 dozen dinner rolls and we were amazed ourselves. After about 4 years my sister decided to leave and go into full time ministry so that left me, but I still wanted to keep making people smile with the food we had been known for.

I then branched out on my own and rebranded myself as The Boujee Baker, I added a lot more items to my menu, I left the store front behind and I work from home. I have a lot of my old clientele and so many new ones.

My life is super busy, I not only run my bakery business, I also run my own childcare facility, The Learning Center www.tlckckids.com, I opened in midtown KC about three years ago and I love it. I run a maintenance company with my husband called M.O.P www.mopkc1.com, we also run a non profit call RiJoyce, www.rijoyce.org, where we focus on helping the elderly and children in our community.

One of my greatest accomplishments is a book I wrote and published called Through the Eyes of a Fatherless child, this book began as a journal for myself, it speaks about growing up without my dad in my life, it was very therapeutic while I was writing it back in 2001. I was encouraged to publish and I am glad that I did.

My life is full of joy and I think I have done everything that I have set out to do in this lifetime and I am proud that I took chances. My husband, children and grands are my number one fans and they are the reason I push and strive as hard as I do.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Life is never as smooth as we would like, there are always obstacles and of course in business I had them. It was tough after my sisters left and I had to rebrand myself. I had to completely start over, instead of 2-3 people splitting the responsibilities, there was just me, I had to take on the things my sisters were good at doing, I had to learn a lot of things just to keep up.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Because I run more than one business I have to be able to keep things organized. Some of the things I am known for on my bakery side are the dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, cheesecakes and one of my new customer favorites is my peanut butter cream pie. I believe the thing that sets me apart from others is the love I put into my product and into all of my businesses, my customers and families keep me moving forward . I strive to make every purchase a memorable one and I try to make sure my customers are satisfied. I have come a very long way in a short amount of time with my baking business, there was a lot of trial and error and my family had to eat a lot of my mistakes LOL, they didn’t mind it though. I am just happy I never gave up and my husband was always there to push me when I didn’t feel confident.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I don’t think luck has played a part in my business at all, I believe everything happens for a reason and it is hard work and my belief that God has a plan for my life and it shall come to pass.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.boujeebakerkc.com
• Other: https://www.tlckckids.com