Yvonne’s Southern Sweets, the 19-year-old Bayview bakery known for its sugar cookies, 7-Up cake, peach cobbler and butter pecan cookies, reopened this past Wednesday.
It was a long time coming: The store, located at 5128 Third St., first closed in January 2025 when the building next door burned down, damaging the bakery.
After a soft reopening May 31, during which Mayor Daniel Lurie raved about the sugar cookies and owner Yvonne Hines sold out of every single baked good in the shop, Hines was ready to get back to business.
Then, while dropping off her daughter at college in June, she received more bad news: Someone had vandalized the bakery’s front window.
“I felt violated and hurt,” said Hines after the break-in. “I’m just a little bakery, 400 square feet,” she continued. Since the shop had been closed, there was no register filled with money.
“The only thing that was in there was sugar, flour and butter,” said Hines, who was born and raised in Bayview-Hunters Point. The Southern in Hines’s baking comes from her grandparents, who are originally from Texas. Like many Black Americans, they came to San Francisco during World War II to work at the Hunters Point Shipyard.
The vandals smashed the window and left a mess. She said she spoke to contractors who quoted the window repair at $6,000, not including the installation of a roll-up door.
At her daughter’s encouragement, Hines set up a GoFundMe and raised more than $10,000 in two months.
“The community support has been overwhelming and awesome,” said Hines. She got back on her feet, she said, thanks to the city of San Francisco, her landlord, the Black police group Officers for Justice, and nonprofit organizations.
Hines said SF New Deal, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping small businesses prosper in San Francisco, was instrumental in her reopening.
She began working with SF New Deal in 2024 — before ever closing — when the organization helped her complete the paperwork for an SF Shines grant, which she used to pay for fixtures and equipment.
“When my shop was shuttered in January, they reached out to me and asked what resources I needed,” said Hines of SF New Deal. She said the team assigned her a business consultant, Paul Barrera.
The organization reached out again after her store was vandalized and offered a helping hand. Barrera not only helped her deal with the contractors who installed the new window, he also checked in on her to make sure she was okay, and helped her fill out paperwork to receive a city vandalism grant for small businesses.
“For want of a few thousand dollars, Yvonne was forced to shut down her business for many months,” said Simon Bertrang, the executive director at SF New Deal, who said the city “did the behind-the-scenes work” to help her reopen.
For now, Yvonne’s Southern Sweets will be open on Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Hines said people can reach out to her via Instagram to place catering orders.
For her part, Hines said she’s excited to be celebrating her 19th year of business on Third Street.
Thanks for reporting.
Congratulations to this woman for being able to reopen and push on .
In too many neighborhoods , thugs , addicts , dealers , vagrants , bums, stupid youth hang out and cause trouble .
They need to grow up and stop ruining everyones lives including their own.
Crack the wip in this town and get control of the idiots and criminals who act like rats running around taking poisons and destroying others lives and properties .
Time to cut the crap and get control of this city .
Hope she can continue to thrive .
Stay strong .
Only wish this city really cared rather then most here who allow the horrific behaviors to go on .
Tired of the juvenile and immature persons on the street who are engaged illegal activity , refuse help and continue to destroy the place .
I like her mini pecan pies. It’s too bad that the foot traffic in bayview is negligible and that very few people come to shop from out of the neighborhood. And on top of that, small businesses like hers would not survive without external help. No way bayview will ever improve without gentrification, making the neighborhood attractive enough for people with higher means. Maybe the AI boom will have a spillover effect. Last decade the tech boom did not penetrate bayview enough, and then Covid totally killed it. Unforch Bayview is now back to the early 2000’s…the neighborhood of broken dreams and promises.
I love Yvonne’s! Glad she is back. Go Lincoln Mustangs!