Cakery Square could just be the inroad to sweet success

Mondale King is all about the hustle.

The 15-year-old Braddock resident is holding down two jobs this summer.

Not only has he been working as a mentor to young children in a youth work skills training program for two years, but he also just hit the sweet spot.

Mondale is a cashier at a new bakery, Cakery Square, co-owned by former Pittsburgh Steeler Wes Lyons in The Waterfront shopping center in Homestead.

For Mondale, who is a rising sophomore in the Woodland Hills School District, it's about taking advantage of all opportunities that come his way.

"I just wanted to get my learning experience … expand my mindset," he says.

Cakery Square

A new bakery, Cakery Square, is co-owned by former Steeler Wes Lyons in The Waterfront in Homestead.

Except for the professional bakers, all of Cakery Square's employees are teens who are familiar with Lyons through The Pursuit, his education company's program in their school districts, most of which have high percentages of students from economically challenged neighborhoods. Lyons himself grew up in one of those communities, North Braddock.

Cakery Square's "mission is to empower the underprivileged youth within the community. ... Our goal is to provide these students with an opportunity to learn, train, and work so they have the skills to be independent and successful adults," according to the shop's mission statement.

The Pursuit has contracts to take former professional athletes into schools to provide curricula in such subjects as life skills, decision making, time management, planning and technology.

Founded in 2013, The Pursuit works with more than 250 middle and high school students in 14 school districts, including Woodland Hills, Steel Valley, West Mifflin Area and West Jefferson Hills.

The Pursuit's annual dessert tasting fundraiser and work with youth inspired the opening of Cakery Square, says Lyons, 28, who graduated from Woodland Hills High School in 2006.

The Pursuit program has positively impacted hard-to-reach students or those facing adversity, says West Mifflin Area Superintendent Daniel Castagna, who says he expects some of the program's tenets to flow into the bakery.

"Wes' whole philosophy is about setting goals, putting down a plan and kind of assessing where you are going and what are you going to do today to take a step toward your goal," Castagna says. "His mission to the students is about taking action."

Lyons' partner, Amber Greene, oversees the bakery's finances, he says.

She worked closely with the bakers to develop the recipes.

Cakery Square baker Lacey Coffey, 24, is a 2015 graduate of the pastry arts program at YTI Career Institute-Lancaster's Pennsylvania School of Culinary Arts.

She worked at boutique bakery My Sweet Lilly in the Strip District and the pastry kitchen at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Fayette County before joining Cakery Square's team.

She was intrigued by the fact that she would be able to experiment with alcohol-infused creations at Cakery Square, she says.

"I was looking for something in Pittsburgh that was more cake-decorating oriented," she says.

Tory N. Parrish is a staff writer for Upgruv.com , a trending-news site for 535Media.