Not Jus' Donuts will be the next Houston bakery featured on Buddy's Bakery Rescue (formerly titled Bakery Boss). The episode premieres Tuesday, July 29, at 9 p.m. on TLC.
We caught up with the owner Myrtle Jackson and her two daughters, Andrea Jackson and Rosharon Cotton, to talk about their experience filming the episode, what they learned from Buddy Valastro, aka "Cake Boss" and how their business has changed.
Myrtle established Not Jus' Donuts, located in the Third Ward at 2020 Dowling Street, in 2000. Since then, the family-owned and operated business has been creating custom cakes using skills and techniques passed down from Myrtle's aunt and grandmother, along with breads, pastries, cookies and pies - no doughnuts. But, nobody from the bakery applied to be on Buddy's Bakery Rescue. In fact, they still don't know who submitted their application.
"One Saturday, it was at our lowest moment; we wanted to shut down," Andrea says. "We were talking about just closing up and we received an email from Discovery Channel and they were scouting for new bakeries to be a part of the Buddy's Bakery Rescue show. It had a questionnaire and essay, so I took it home, finished the essay, emailed it probably that Monday and a few days later heard back from them."
After several interviews in person and over Skype, Myrtle and her two daughters began to suspect they were being chosen for the show.
"We were in limbo for another few months and then one Tuesday in August, our A/C was out and it was as hot as ever," Andrea recalls. "We saw these three or four vans of people just bombarding us, coming inside the bakery and it kind of scared us; we thought we were getting raided; thought it was a bust or something, and it was High Noon Entertainment, who produced the show."
In October 2013, the women were informed they would be featured on Buddy's Bakery Rescue. One month later, filming began. But before the crew got to work on remodeling the interior and exterior of the bakery, Valastro made sure their A/C unit was fixed. In June 2013, lightning struck the A/C unit outside.
"It was hot, I'm telling you. It was 103 degrees the day they came in [to interview] and when they came on November 2, they weren't supposed to do any work," Andrea says. "November 1 was when they actually had somebody come and repaired our A/C unit."
After Valastro entered the bakery (which came as another surprise), he started tasting their products. According to them, Valastro couldn't find many problems in the flavor.
"We saved the sweet potato pie for last and that's what he fell in love with," Andrea says. "He said it was the best he has ever had. That's all I'm going to say. He couldn't find issues with our stuff, which is a good thing."
One of the biggest issues Valastro had with Not Jus' Donuts was the way the women stored their products in the glass cases.
"We keep everything in closed packages. We are in Houston; it's humid here and cookies fall apart. We make them today, I promise you put them in the case, 30 minutes later, an hour later, they are crumbly," Andrea says. "We found a way to eliminate that and it's packing them in cellophane. He didn't like that. He said they look too commercial. But, we wanted to give it a little flare, but homemade products, so that was the disagreement we had. So, we did try that attempt for the first day."
In the end, Myrtle and her daughters got their way after proving to Valastro and the film crew that the cookies and other products would crumble into pieces if not packaged properly, which happened before the re-grand opening.
