As an accomplished Vancouver pastry chef, Thea Mercer was passionate about her craft – the precision and patience it required, and the classical European dessert-making techniques she had been trained in. But she didn’t love some of the food waste she saw in fine dining establishments, and she dreamed of starting something of her own.
Her husband, Laurie Mercer, a former concert promoter who managed the legendary Canadian punk-rock band D.O.A., encouraged her to take the leap, and together, in 2006, they launched a wedding cake business that would become Sweet Thea.
During seasonal dips, Thea baked other goods to sell at Christmas and farmers markets, like Stollen, a traditional German fruit bread made with a rich, buttery dough. “That turned out to be the beginning of a rocket ship that we didn’t know we were boarding,” says Laurie. “We drastically stood out in that community and we got to the point where we were doing well over a dozen farmers markets throughout the Lower Mainland every single week.”
Today, Sweet Thea no longer offers custom wedding cakes, and it has grown from a farmer’s market favourite into a beloved Vancouver bakery with a flagship café on Main Street, a Langley production hub and one of the busiest coffee shops in Western Canada at the Tsawwassen BC Ferries Terminal.
Whether it’s freshly-baked sourdough that takes three days to make or sweets crafted with real, simple ingredients (and lots of love), Thea is as passionate about baking as ever – except this time, it’s on her terms and the daily surplus gets donated to local charities.
From selling on the go with Square’s bakery POS system to navigating an over-budget buildout with Square Loans, Sweet Thea has relied on Square to scale while keeping its spirit intact.
Building a dream bakery with zero initial capital
Sweet Thea was built from the ground up, one wedding cake and farmers market sale at a time. Securing a full space at the busy Tsawwassen Quay market took seven years. First, Thea and Laurie set up a tent outside. Then, they rented a small stall. When the opportunity to take over the coffee shop across their stall came up during the pandemic, they jumped on it.
They also had their eyes set on Main Street after running a successful pop-up market in the area during lockdown restrictions, supporting fellow vendors who weren’t able to operate otherwise. When a new building went up the street, they approached the owner and said they wanted Sweet Thea to be the anchor tenant.
They didn’t have much capital, but they had roots in the neighbourhood. The landlord agreed, offering support towards their buildout as long as they could secure the rest of the financing. “We had borrowed everything we could from friends and family – credit union, BDC, all of these things – we were overextended,” says Laurie. “We wound up half a million dollars over budget.”
Growing without compromising core values
At the same time, the wife-and-husband duo were managing a complex, multi-location operation with seasonal cash flow swings that added to the financial pressure. “If you get three statutory holidays in a month, suddenly you have an enormous payroll,” says Laurie.
They were also working with three completely different service models, from their retail bakery and production facility in Langley to their ferry terminal coffee shop, which drew both locals and big crowds of tourists in the summer. The challenge? Maintain the same quality of service and juggle operational priorities across locations, from the high-throughput environment of the ferry terminal to the flagship store on Main Street, which involves being “more splashy than austere in terms of presentation,” as Laurie puts it.
Competing in Vancouver’s highly saturated bakery scene with a lean team meant Sweet Thea had a commitment to making handmade goods with real ingredients and no shortcuts.
To grow while staying true to values like quality, community and treating people well, the bakery needed efficient tools – something that expensive legacy payment processors had failed to deliver early on. “We would do Christmas shows in big venues and the Wi-Fi or phone coverage would be so bad that you’d be telling customers, ‘Sorry, I need cash. You have to go to a bank before you can buy our Christmas cake’,” says Laurie.
How Square helps Sweet Thea scale operations across three locations
From agile hardware to flexible financing with invite-only Square Loan offers, Square has supported Sweet Thea through every stage of its evolution.
Hardware that keeps up
Thea and Laurie started their journey with Square Reader, which allowed them to accept card payments at farmers markets even when Wi-Fi was unreliable thanks to Square’s offline payment processing capabilities.
Today, the Sweet Thea team uses a combination of Square Stand and Terminal across its locations. Offering a speedy checkout experience is especially important at the ferry terminal coffee shop, when every second matters to capture sales.
Tools that put people first
While sleek, modern hardware helps Sweet Thea move through lines quickly, Square’s ecosystem of tools is fuelling the bakery’s growth.
First, there’s Square Shifts, which Sweet Thea relies on for scheduling, shift management, time-tracking and time-off requests. It gives Thea and Laurie real-time visibility into team activities across locations while empowering staff with transparency, structure and autonomy.
Square Dashboard also equips them with insights to be savvier with their resources, from planning production to making staffing decisions based on sales trends. “The fact that the reports are in real time gives us a lot of strengths,” says Laurie. “We’re really quick to drop a product if it doesn’t make money. But we’re really quick to explore new ideas too.”
Meanwhile, Square Loyalty has allowed Sweet Thea to build a loyalty program that reflects its values, rewarding loyal customers with experiences and community perks that they can feel good about supporting. Whether it’s all-access passes to the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) or tickets to a flamenco festival or play, Sweet Thea’s loyalty rewards are designed to celebrate and support the community around them. “These are all locally driven community organizations that are part of our world,” adds Laurie.
Flexible funding
Finally, Square Loans supported Sweet Thea when renovations for its Main Street location went half a million dollars over budget, providing funds quickly based on years of real-time transaction history instead of having the business go through a traditional, lengthy application process.
Thea and Laurie have also relied on Square Loans to consolidate high-interest, short-term debt from other sources, treating it as “little money in the back pocket” thanks to proactive notifications that let them know they have access to personalized loan offers should they require them.
Square’s ongoing support and confidence in the business have earned Sweet Thea’s long-term trust. “It’s been a great partnership for us,” says Laurie.
Craft, community and confidence to grow
Thanks to Square Loans, Sweet Thea was able to quickly complete its flagship bakery buildout and open its doors in a dream location.
“That level of confidence? You don’t get that walking into any other financial institution. With a bank, I’d have to do five-year cash flow projections broken down to a micro level – what the café is going to bring in, what the bread is going to bring in and how much we’ll pay in credit card transaction fees in 2030. It’s a big dog and pony show,” says Laurie.
The continued flexibility to borrow funds has helped the business stay financially resilient and expand. “It gives us more cash flow, liquidity and operational latitude to be the kind of shop that we want to be,” he adds. “We need good packaging, we need things that aren’t in the budget for a buildout, but are necessary to maintain the high level of interest and customer satisfaction.”
Customer satisfaction also depends on how efficiently the team can serve its customer base. Sweet Thea is equipped to deliver seamless payment experiences in different settings, from a holiday farmer’s market to a bustling ferry terminal or a lively neighbourhood café. In the backend, integrated tools and real-time data make it easier to operate with intention.
Ultimately, Square gives Sweet Thea the ability to focus on treating people with care, whether that’s team members, customers or neighbours. The loyalty program deepens relationships with regulars and local partners alike. “So we both came from a sense of small guys struggling against the man—determined to make our way,” says Laurie. “So it’s been a foundation of our business that we’ve tried to create something that is good for our employees. We try not to treat people the way we have been treated, and, every step of the way, when the farmers’ markets don’t sell out or when we don’t sell out at our Main Street shop, we have different organizations come and pick up food for donations.”
With strong systems, agile tools and financial peace of mind, the team can prioritize what matters the most: Feeding communities and maintaining the product quality that built Sweet Thea’s reputation as a Vancouver staple.
