Sinful Sweetz drawing sweet-toothed customers to historic building in downtown Gadsden

What began as a youthful pastime and became a successful side job has turned into a bustling business in a historic building in downtown Gadsden.

Sinful Sweetz opened in June at 412 Broad St., and is drawing lines of customers for its cupcakes, ice cream, house made fudge and pralines, and other sweet treats.

It also offers custom cakes for special occasions, which is what owners Lee and Dana Johnson — who have made the building their home, literally — are known for across the area.

East Gadsden natives are Litchfield High grads

The Johnsons are East Gadsden natives — “We started first grade together,” Lee Johnson said, “and were in 4-H and home ec together” — and are 1987 graduates of Litchfield High School.

Johnson became an electrician and his wife a beautician, but seven years ago they launched a cake business, selling directly to customers under Alabama’s cottage food law.

“I’d always decorated and made cakes,” Johnson said. “I was the youngest of three and my mother taught me how to cook, and I won a bread-baking competition. My sister also decorated cakes and I picked up a little from her.

“I was working at Goodyear at the time and would carry cakes into work,” he said, “and one thing led to another, and we made a Facebook page.”

Weddings, anniversaries and kids' cakes

Johnson said they averaged 50 to 70 weddings a year, sometimes three or four a weekend. “We have a good following of people for weddings, anniversaries and kids’ cakes," he said. “A lot of our customers have been with us the whole time.”

They bought the building on Broad Street, which Johnson said they’re “proud of,” five years ago. “We had just come back from a road trip,” he said. “We went to Boston, then we came back and stayed a few days in a loft in Brooklyn and fell in love with that.”

The building’s most noteworthy recent occupant was Little Faces Doll Shop. (Johnson has saved the sign from that business and also plans to restore a neon sign owned by Terry Jennings, who operated Little Faces.) However, its history goes a lot farther back, according to insurance maps and other records.

History preserved in building dating back to 1885

It was constructed in 1885, replacing a wooden structure that burned in the famous July 4, 1883, fire that destroyed a huge chunk of Broad Street, and has apparently been expanded twice over the years.

Johnson said it housed Mitchell Brothers Saloon from 1886 to 1906, when Gadsden outlawed open saloons.

“They must have had a pit where they threw old liquor bottles,” he said. “We’ve found some of those and even a cobalt ink bottle.”

Some of the original mosaic floor tiles remain intact, along with the terrazzo tiles installed during a renovation of the front portion in the 1940s.

There’s also a tin ceiling, although Johnson said it wasn’t original, that it replaced cheesecloth-backed wallpaper.

Johnson (who worked as an electrician on a renovation of the building in the 1990s) did much of what was required to bring the building up to code specifications, engaging subcontractors as needed, but the goal has been to preserve as much of its history as possible.

“We wanted to save everything we could,” he said.

The interior has brick walls, which were sealed after plaster was removed, and there are lots of antique items on display, such as a penny weight machine salvaged from early days at Gadsden’s Goodyear plant.

And an elevator was installed to allow the Johnsons to get upstairs to the loft, where they now live. (The space was once former U.S. Rep. Albert Rains’ law office.)

“When we put the elevator shaft in, we found a snooker stick that someone slid into the floor joists,” Johnson said. “There’s a book called ‘Haunted Etowah County’ that talks about this building, that there was a picture on the wall of the nursery that would swing. I told Dana the snooker stick was probably a murder weapon back when it was a saloon.”

Catering to customers

History goes only so far to entice customers, however, and people have enjoyed Sinful Sweetz’ fare since it opened.

“It’s been amazing,” Johnson said. “The customers have been great. We’ve had a steady stream, and the first week there were lines every day.”

The biggest adjustment has been “knowing what to prep for customers,” he said, instead of just filling orders for pickup.

“You want to have fresh food for people and not be out of things,” he said, “but you don’t want to have waste.”

He said they also learned to open a bit later on Saturday mornings, when people tend not to get up as early.

A couple of the Johnsons’ offerings stem from their travels. They tasted pralines while working a wedding in Savannah, Georgia, where they’re a signature item in River Street sweet treats stores, and decided to make them here. (They’ve been a top seller.)

They also had encountered Hershey ice cream and knew they wanted it in their store. (Customers can sample flavors before buying.)

Personal attention from a mom-and-pop shop

The biggest thing they try to offer, however, aside from “a top-tier product,” as Johnson described it, is a personal touch, something that started when they were making cakes on the side.

“Anybody can bake,” Johnson said. “People like that personal attention. We won’t do a wedding without having a consultation first. We want to make sure we tell them all the little things.”

And they envision the business as being “a mom-and-pop shop; we live on top and come down to work,” he said.

“We didn’t remodel this building for anybody else,” said Johnson, who’s currently working on the Food City construction at the Gadsden Mall, but plans for that to be his last job as an electrician and will devote himself full time to Sinful Sweetz.

The store is open from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Sinful Sweetz a hit in downtown Gadsden with cupcakes, ice cream