What began as a small endeavor to help pay for urban planning junior Diana Reyna’s college tuition, has become a thriving dessert baking business that services College Station and Houston.
Reyna’s small business, Pastelitos Co., began a little over one year ago and her accomplishments and determination to fulfil her full potential have led her to be recognized as one of the 10 Glamour Magazine 2020 College Women of the Year.
Reyna said she had no idea that she was going to be featured as one of Glamour’s 2020 College Women of the Year when she was contacted on Twitter by a contributing writer for Glamour.
“Jenny Singer reached out to me very nonchalantly and mentioned that they wanted to honor some of my accomplishments… I had no idea it was gonna be for this though,” Reyna said.
During her bake day on July 1, the article was posted. When she saw the full article, Reyna said it was an unbelievable feeling to be a recipient of the honor among so many other outstanding college women.
“I realized what the article was for and I had to sit here and be like ‘this is a real article showing your story, your business,’” Reyna said. “It was so crazy to pause and be like yeah, I did do all of this stuff huh? And to be featured in Glamour? A magazine all about female empowerment? A dream come true.”
Reyna’s business has also recently expanded due to the high demand for her cheesecakes.
“I’m having a lot of my very first customers (like back when I was still selling out of my house) come by and pick up cheesecakes and mention how proud they are to have seen Pastelitos come so far,” Reyna said. “Opening the second location kinda let me take a step back to realize like, we’ve come so far in so little time. It’s a very sweet thing to think on.”
Reyna said that the experience of expansion has been stressful due to the amount of paperwork and organizing while still running production, but it has all been worth it.
“Nonetheless, I still get to see my very happy customers twice a week and work with my amazing amazing workers four times a week so it’s all worth it,” Reyna said. “We’ve gotten a lot of support from various people and places so it makes the transition a lot smoother.”
As for her goals and ambitions for the future, Reyna said that she hopes to see her customers return to what she hopes will one day be a dessert cafe.
“Speaking long term though, I would love to have a sit down restaurant for Pastelitos,” Reyna said. “Maybe something like a mini dessert place. Where you can sit and study with coffee and a pastry. It’s just an idea now but a lot of my current reality was ideas at some point.”