OUR STORY

In early part of summer 2008, we opened our doors at Polkadots — a dream project of husband-and-wife team Olga and Ben. Olga graduated from University of Texas with a degree in Chemical Engineering from Cockrell School of Engineering in 2002, then continued her education at the California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena, CA. Olga moved back to Austin and took on a day job working with Accenture. While working for the firm during the day, she experimented at nights with different recipes and developed delicious pastries which eventually became recipes for Polkadots. After few years of being a corporate excel monkey by day, baker by night, she decided to ditch her button down suits and high heels to put on her aprons full time to create fun, whimsical cookies, cupcakes, and cakes. When not in the kitchen or delivering cakes, you’ll find Olga doing cross stitch, yoga, and playing with her daughter and son, Emery and Ellis.

Ben graduated from the McCombs School of Business then worked at Dell as a techie for a long time (too long) rescuing servers. Like many people, he’s always wanted to start his own business, and one day, he was driving by the location of the burger joint that he used to work for called Rockets. There was a for rent sign on the window so he called Olga and told her we had found the location for the shop. We are located at 2826 Rio Grande St. (at the intersection of 28 1/2 St. and Rio Grande) in a house built in 1908. It still has the original beam ceilings, tiles in the bathroom floor, along with other old-school features hidden inside the walls.

Photos by : Cory Ryan