Owner of lockdown bakery business opens first high street cafe

Lianna Inman, 33, opened Baked by Vanilla Bean in June 2020 after “being bored” at home on Furlough during the national quarantine.

Working in the food service industry for over 13 years, she used her wealth of experience to start selling sweet treats and cakes from her home in Normanton.

The business quickly took off with customers ordering her delicious creations to their door.

Soon after, Lianna and her husband, Ash, began to scour the district to find the perfect shop space to open their own cafe, which took over a year to find.

After attending a pregnancy scan, Lianna found a property that was available on Wood Street and fell in love with the place.

The shop has been going “extremely well” so far, with customers appreciating the high quality brownies, blondies, cakes and cookies that she makes fresh in-store everyday, alongside locally sourced coffee.

She said: “The shop has been going really well so far. I started the business in June 2020 as I got a bit bored during lockdown. I always wanted to have my own bakery and coffee shop. I started baking and people were interested in it and the business took off.”

Lianna, who worked at Nandos for 13 years and at Costa Coffee for three months before starting the business, learned how to bake from her grandmother, who is like a mother figure to her.

Lianna adeed: “I learned how to bake from my Nana, I used to go around to her house every Saturday and we’d spend the whole time baking.

“My Nana is dead proud of us, she is more of a mum figure to me now because my mum passed away around 10 years ago now.”

Customers have responded positively to the new business venture and appreciate the fact that the cafe is bringing something different to the area.

“The response has been extremely positive, customers like that we’re offering something different”, she said.

“A lot of the cafes around here offer a range of everything but we specialise in what we do best, which is coffee and cakes.

“We’re also open a bit later than other places on the street which customers appreciate!”

Lianna’s husband, Ash, and his father, who is a plumber, fitted out the shop.

He is proud to have sourced a Yorkshire-based coffee company to compliment Lianna’s baked creations.

He said: “We don’t sell any old coffee. We spent a lot of time searching for a local Yorkshire supplier, which compliments Lianna’s baking extremely well.

“It is something that our customers have noticed without us pushing it. It is very different to any other cafes in the area as we are the only ones that use this supplier, it is adding something more to Wakefield rather than just being another coffee shop.

“We don’t want to be just a normal coffee shop, we want to do things exceptionally well and that is done to a high standard, coffee and cake is what we’re good at and is what we stick to.”