Sweet Spot

Lia Holter has recently had a few friends rewatch the fourth season of TLC’s “The Next Great Baker,” the reality competition she won with fellow pastry chef Al Watson in 2014. In addition to a $100,000 cash prize, Holter won the opportunity to move to Las Vegas or Hoboken, New Jersey to work in one of the renowned bakeries owned by host Buddy Valastro (aka the Cake Boss). It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So why, her friends wondered, didn’t she jump at the chance?

Now, looking back over a decade later, Holter says her decision has never been more clear — St. Louis, and more specifically, North County, is exactly where she needed to be.

Holter first fell in love with baking when she started making Christmas cookies with her family at just 5 years old, drawn to the idea of zoning in on a project and using her hands to create something new. As a teenager, she tapped into her creativity by making themed birthday cakes, such as a soccer ball or a guitar with licorice strings, for her nephew each year. And, while pursuing her associate’s degree in baking and pastry arts from St. Louis Community College-Forest Park and a bachelor’s in business from Fontbonne University, she began to make a name for herself in St. Louis as the pastry chef at Florissant mainstay Hendel’s.

After winning “The Next Great Baker,” her Facebook page for Made. by Lia exploded seemingly overnight. In her tiny apartment, then located above Hendel’s (which is owned by her sister and brother-in-law, Christina and Nathan Bennett), she began cranking out dozens of cakes and pastries such as French macarons, gooey butter cake, and cupcakes for special orders. In particular, she became known for her artful hand-painted layer cakes, often featuring roses, wildflowers, hydrangeas, and other blooms created with nothing more than colored buttercream and a palette knife. Some of her cakes have taken upwards of five hours just to decorate, but Holter considers each a work of art — the cake is her canvas, and no two are ever the same. 

Not long after, it became clear that she needed more room, so in 2015, she jumped at the opportunity to become a brand ambassador for AB Mauri, a St. Louis-based baking ingredient company that owns Fleischmann’s Yeast. With access to the company’s state-of-the-art commercial kitchen in the Cortex Innovation Community, Holter was able to take on even more orders for weddings, corporate events, and other gatherings. As Made. by Lia continued to grow in popularity, she began looking for her own brick-and-mortar space where she could welcome in customers. 

Holter scouted properties all across the St. Louis metro area, from Downtown St. Louis to Webster Groves, Kirkwood, and Clayton, but ultimately, the perfect location was right in her own backyard.

While walking down Rue St. Francois in her neighborhood of Old Town Florissant with her husband, Max, and eldest daughter, Ella, a few years back, Holter noticed that a building she had long admired, located just a block away from their home, had come up for sale. Although she was nervous to take the jump and open her own storefront, she knew she had to follow her dream — and North County was the place to do it. 

Born and raised in Bellefontaine Neighbors — “I’ve always been NoCo strong,” she says — Holter felt called to use her business to invest in the community, deciding to open Made. by Lia in Old Town Florissant. When the 2020 global health crisis forced nationwide shutdowns just as the bakery was finally getting ready to open its doors, the community wound up investing in Holter’s dreams, too. She and Max launched a Kickstarter campaign to offset some of the buildout costs and passed their target goal of $15,000 in the first 24 hours. 

“We live in our community and now we work in our community, too,” Holter says. “We just really wanted to be the light for North County at the time to boost everybody’s spirits because not a lot of people were investing and putting money into North County. We wanted to put North County on the map and give more people a reason to come here and to show them that, especially in Old Town, we’re a little hidden gem of a neighborhood. We wanted to invest in our community and be here for our neighbors.”

Made. by Lia officially opened its doors in August 2020 and has quickly become a staple in the community, known for its from-scratch baked goods such as blueberry scones (both vegan and gluten-free), jumbo chocolate chip cookies with flaky salt, and St. Louis Cake, a silky, not overly sweet spin on the city’s famous gooey butter cake. Holter continues to take orders for her signature painted floral cakes for weddings and other special occasions, but the bakery, which also offers a full coffee and tea menu, is also an everyday neighborhood gathering spot. 

Each Wednesday, the “Mocha Mamas,” a group of women who have been getting together for coffee for many years, meet at Made. by Lia, while another couple stops in every Saturday for lattes and a sweet treat. When houses come up for sale in the neighborhood, Holter loves that realtors will often highlight their proximity to the bakery in their listings, and much of the merchandise she sells in the shop, including T-shirts, hats, and coffee mugs, proudly promote Old Town Florissant.

“You can tell that the community wants us to succeed, wants us to be here and to thrive, and hopefully be here for a very long time,” she says. 

At Made. by Lia, Holter bakes beautiful cakes and delicious, comforting pastries, but she’s also helping her customers create their own memories at home in the kitchen. In 2023, she self-printed a cookbook featuring Christmas cookie recipes, including both childhood favorites and bakery staples, which quickly sold out and was offered for sale again in 2024. In fall 2025, she plans to release a larger cookbook in collaboration with AB Mauri and Reedy Press that will feature recipes for a “greatest hits” of sweet and savory baked goods and yeast-raised breads and rolls such as an everyday loaf, her kids’ favorite chocolate-cherry cake, and her lemon meringue tart, made famous on the menu at Hendel’s.

Holter’s dedication to her community is also helping to shape Florissant far outside the bounds of the bakery’s 2,000-square-foot storefront. Mark Goldstein, who has lived and worked in the community his entire life, knows this to be true. 

In 2021, Goldstein and a few other Florissant residents took over operations at Henke’s Tavern, a historic watering hole founded before Prohibition. Hoping to preserve the local landmark for generations to come, they’ve kept some things the same, like Henke’s signature open-faced cheeseburger plate, while freshening up the space and expanding hours. Goldstein has been around Florissant long enough to know many of the people in the community, so he enjoys seeing all the new faces in line at Made. by Lia, many of whom have made a special trip from other areas of the St. Louis metro. 

Holter says the support from customers across the region — as well as other local business owners — has helped solidify that she made the right decision to stay and grow her business in St. Louis. While new restaurants, bakeries, and bars continue to open their doors, the spirit among them remains cooperative and collaborative. 

“I think what’s a little bit different about St. Louis is that we’re more like a community of small business owners rather than it being a competition,” she says. “There are so many times where I get a call for decorated cookies, and I’m like, ‘We don’t do those here, but go to Colleen’s Cookies.’ Or, ‘We don’t offer croissants, but go to Nathaniel Reid.’ We’re building each other up, which I love. St. Louis has a great food scene, but we’re not oversaturated like some other cities — there’s the perfect amount in each little pocket of St. Louis.” 

As Made. by Lia carves out its reputation as both a neighborhood gathering place and a destination bakery in the metro, Old Town Florissant is continuing to grow and evolve as a new generation of business owners choose to invest in their community. Some have launched new concepts, while others, like Goldstein and his partners, are breathing new life into longstanding institutions like Henke’s while still respecting their history and charm. 

Holter’s sister and brother-in-law, Christina and Nathan Bennett, have charted a similar path with Hendel’s, a historic grocery and general store that Nathan’s parents first transformed into a restaurant in 1994. The pair, who both started working at Hendel’s in high school, have made some upgrades to the venerable establishment, expanding the front porch, adding a new bar room, and even incorporating a penny candy counter in a nod to the building’s early days. 

Christina says the close-knit community in Old Town Florissant — where neighbors run into each other daily at the library, church, or playground — has been vital to the success of Hendel’s. She’s grateful for the opportunity to help grow the restaurant into an institution for years to come, especially as her sister builds another thriving business just two blocks away.

“You can tell that people are really wanting our neighborhood to last for even more generations,” Holter says. “I wanted to plant my roots and grow my family and my business in North County because it’s where I was born and raised and I want to see it grow. If you do live here, you get it: It’s just a gem of a place. You don’t really know until you come check it out, and then you’ll see for yourself why the people who live here love it so much. It’s a special community.”

Goldstein, too, is excited to see more businesses continuing to open in Florissant, and he credits Holter’s success with Made. by Lia for encouraging many of those entrepreneurs to take the leap. 

“It’s fueled the fire for more folks to take a chance,” he says. “From her story of winning ‘The Next Great Baker’ to opening her bakery herself, it’s exploded and the word is out. That brings people to Florissant to see what we have to offer. She’s a very important part of Florissant. Her heart is in Florissant; she’s really anchored in and has made a great success story for all of us.”