There are many layers to Rita Magalde’s baklava. There are the seasonal fruits and nuts of her Southern upbringing, echoing the pies her mother made from scratch. There’s the perfectly flaky phyllo she learned to bake as a teenager working for a Greek family. There are years and experiences and setbacks stacked one upon another to form a serendipitous result.
When Magalde opened Sheer Ambrosia bakery in Utah, she had just sold her share in a successful travel agency she co-owned with her former husband. Over 10 years, they’d built the business to 30 employees and 5,600 square feet of office space. Their travel agency made it through 9/11 and the restructuring in the airline industry. Through it all, they persisted through their divorce four years earlier while running their business.
“Neither of us wanted to leave the business, but I decided my mental health was more important than money,” Magalde says.
Embarking on the next phase of her life, which she dubbed “Reinventing Rita,” she traveled and picked up Argentine tango. She baked, bringing her homemade baklava to dancing events.
Baklava Fuses Greek and Southern Flavors
The baklava fused the Greek and Southern flavors of her youth. Growing up in North Carolina, her mother crafted desserts from scratch every Sunday — delicious blackberry, apple and pecan pies — depending on what was in season. At 16 years old, Magalde had gained a love of Greek culture and food while working for a Greek family. She learned to make baklava by watching the grandmother make traditional honey walnut baklava.
Sharing these parts of her past with friends and family got her thinking: maybe this could also be her next business venture.
Friends and family agreed; most enthusiastically, her father. “You should make this; you should sell this. This is a good business,” she remembers him saying.
Magalde had already been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. Running the travel agency, she relished being in control of her time and finances. Now as a single mom with two young children, she needed that flexibility. She also loved the idea of building another successful business.
Magalde learned about the Utah Department of Agriculture’s Cottage Food program, which allows entrepreneurs and small business owners to make and sell shelf-stable foods from their home kitchen under strict guidelines. She submitted recipes, opened her home to inspections and met with department officials. Thanks in part to baklava’s relatively long shelf life, her plan was approved.
She began selling baklava out of her home kitchen in 2008, personally packaging each order in a teal and brown-striped box emblazoned with the business name: Sheer Ambrosia.
In spring 2009, she landed her first wholesale client. And by 2013, she was ready to go all in, funneling her savings to buy commercial space for her growing business in Sandy, Utah.
Converting a former hair salon into a bakery, she found herself working 15-hour days, seven days a week for three years. When her father passed away, she couldn’t leave the bakery long enough to spend even 24 hours in North Carolina for the funeral.
“I thought, this isn’t a way to live,” she remembers.
She sold the commercial kitchen and brought the businesses back into her home, taking a job as a claims adjuster for an insurance company while she regrouped.
By the end of 2019, she was back to running Sheer Ambrosia full time, now entirely from home. Focusing on her online storefront, she hired a company to revamp her website. She finished the year out strong as holiday orders poured in through the new website.
Pandemic Pause
Everything changed in 2020. Restaurants — including those that sold her baklava — were shuttered by the pandemic.
“People wanted toilet paper, they didn’t want baklava,” she recalls.
Again, Magalde had to step away from her entrepreneurial dreams. In May 2020 she was sitting at her newly acquired office job at an industrial construction company when Instagram notifications inundated her phone. People were “liking” the Sheer Ambrosia Instagram page in astonishing numbers.
Baffled, she soon learned her bakery had been added to a list of Black-owned businesses being circulated online to encourage support and show solidarity with the Black community following the murder of George Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020.
When Magalde told her boss about the orders pouring in, he told her to go home and fill them.
“I was overwhelmed with gratitude because there were a lot of people who felt for the plight of the Black community. They were saying, ‘I want to put my money where my mouth is. That is my way of supporting the cause.’”
She delivered the orders to personally thank each customer.
“People were saying, ‘we support you; we love you.’ I said, ‘Thank you, but I make dang good baklava. You placed this first order to support Black-owned businesses. I want you to come back because you loved the baklava and because I deserve to have the business, not because of what I look like.’”
Media Attention Fuels Growth
As a national conversation and racial reckoning followed Floyd’s death, Sheer Ambrosia was highlighted by several media outlets as a Black-owned business: first by the Salt Lake Tribune, then National Public Radio’s Marketplace.
“It was the most spectacular thing,” Magalde recalls. “The Marketplace interview aired on the East Coast and orders started coming in up and down the east coast.”
As the show aired across the Midwest and then the West Coast, orders continued to mount like a tidal wave.
Not only did the media attention revive the business, it brought in unlikely customers and unexpected friendships, pairings as unique as her baklava flavors.
A California man who heard the NPR interview became a friend and mentor, calling in frequent orders to share with neighbors and even his plumber. Despite their different backgrounds — he an 80-year-old Jewish man and Magalde a middle-aged Black woman — they connected instantly. They’d talk over the phone about current events and politics, passing the time while she made and delivered baklava, sometimes laughing until they cried. His unwavering support gave her confidence.
When Magalde received a devastating text message that her friend had died, she bought a plane ticket and filled a carry-on bag with 120 pieces of baklava to share at his funeral. While he didn’t live long enough to attend the grand opening of Sheer Ambrosia’s new brick-and-mortar location, Magalde believes he was there in spirit.
Zions Bank Offers Support for Expansion
With a loan from Zions Bank, Sheer Ambrosia’s commercial kitchen opened in January 2024. In May, Magalde hired her first employee.
Located at 1749 S. State Street in Salt Lake City, the bakery churns out 14 baklava flavors, from peach walnut cobbler to apple walnut pie, many of them based on Magalde’s mother’s original recipes. The commercial kitchen has brought more wholesale opportunities, in addition to a walk-in storefront. In 2024, Sheer Ambrosia was recognized as the Utah Black Chamber’s inaugural Business of the Year.
“Entrepreneurship is not for the weary. It requires tenacity and an unwillingness to give up,” she says. “But this is my dream, and I was determined to make it work.”
Looking for a bank that’s invested in your future and can help you reach your small business’ financial goals? Zions Bank’s team of relationship managers can provide small business success strategies as well as funding options, including U.S. Small Business Administration loans. Visit a local Zions Bank branch to learn more about how Zions Bank can help with your small business success.
