What happens when social media makes your mouth water

Words by Rebecca Deurlein

Lacey Evans is the first to tell you that she is a fashion school dropout. But she tells you from behind the counter of her booming business, the aptly named Dropout Bakery, while a line forms outside the door. 

At only 24 years old, Evans has parlayed fashion into fondant, creating sweet and savory treats in an adorable house-turned-gathering place in downtown Mobile, Alabama.

As traditional as a Southern bakery might seem, though, she did it in a nontraditional way. 

After deciding that studying fashion in Los Angeles wasn’t for her, she returned to her hometown of Mobile to answer the question, “What’s next?” Then COVID struck, and with nothing else to do, she turned her loft apartment’s small kitchen into a creative space, baking ambrosial pastries and posting them on Instagram. The beautifully designed treats gained visibility, and when she uploaded her version of the king cake—a cinnamon bun with brown butter cream cheese—it went viral. 

“I decorated it very differently from the traditional king cake that is loaded with green, gold, and purple colored sugar,” Evans says. “After all, I was a fashion major, so I needed them to look way cooler.” Her version, draped in icing and decorated to look like a piece of jewelry—gold leaf included—is less gaudy, more sleek and fashionable.

Orders poured in from around the country, while Evans’ fellow Mobilians skipped the shipping and picked up their pastries from her apartment. The more she sold, the more her social media following grew, requiring her to rely on her business experience, something she earned at only 17 years old. 

“Lucky for me, I had always been entrepreneurial,” says Evans. “When I was a junior in high school, I built a website through Shopify and learned customer service, how to promote a product—in this case, swimsuits—in a saturated industry, and how to maximize Facebook ads and Google SEO. That helped tremendously when I realized I had a business here.”

Then local Mobile station WKRG News 5 interviewed her at her loft for a story on how social media can catapult a little at-home bakery into national success. Ten minutes after the segment aired, 30 orders came in, and Evans knew she needed a bigger space.  

Three months later in 2022, Evans partnered with boyfriend and co-owner Will Allam and moved into her first storefront on St. Louis Street. Her delicacies are the first thing you see when you walk in the door. They are so beautiful that many hesitate to bite into them. But once they do, they become repeat customers. 

“I must have tried half the bakery case,” says Jessica Fender, a New Orleans-based travel journalist, influencer, and trip host. “I love it when a pastry is as delicious as it is beautiful. And the king cake cinnamon bun? I might get in trouble for eating it outside the Mardi Gras season, but it’s totally worth it.”

Evans says she owes much of her early success to being technologically savvy. “These days, social media runs the world,” she says. “Being able to leverage that has made all the difference for my business, and I’m young enough to know how to use my devices and apps like Tik Tok and Instagram to my advantage.”

Evans is a huge trend-follower, and Instagram gives her a window into the worldwide baking scene. Take the Crookie, a French creation that melds—in the most decadent way possible—croissants with chocolate chip cookies. It is now one of Evans’ most popular desserts. Or traditional tiramisu with an Evans spin—substituting the traditional lady fingers with butter croissants. And then there’s the Drop Tarts, made-from-scratch breakfast pastries that elevate Pop Tarts to a degree that doesn’t seem possible. 

Coincidentally, Allam is Danish, so one could argue he was destined to end up with a bakery business. And Evans feels this is where she was meant to be all along. Every bit of the business—from being her own boss, to creating beauty, to being elbow-deep in flour—makes Evans happy. 

“One door closed and another opened, and now I smile every day on my way to work.”