Jennifer Gryckiewicz’s father ran a restaurant and catering company. Her mother owns a preschool. 
So Jennifer took her dad’s culinary creativity, blended it with her mom’s commitment to kids, and cultivated a career in cakes. And cupcakes. And cookies. And other confectionary creations.
The lifelong Dracut resident owns Sugar Coated Bakery at 1794 Bridge Street, Unit 13A, in the Bridgewood Plaza. Her father, Steve Dumais, ran Steve’s Kitchen at the Knickerbocker Club in Lowell for 38 years until his retirement in 2020; her mother, Monique Dumais, operates Kids on Track Preschool out of their Gerrish Avenue home.
At Sugar Coated, Jenn and her four employees – manager Rebecca Zimmermann of Nashua, baker Chanel Quill of Lowell, and decorators Lizzie Anthony of Dracut and Kim Keading of Nashua – prepare cakes and other treats for walk-in customers, as well as special orders for occasions like weddings, birthdays, baby showers and graduations.
“We’ll pretty much take on any project,” Jenn says.
Like the time Lowell Memorial Auditorium asked Sugar Coated to make a cake in the shape of a guitar when country musician Martina McBride played there.
Jenn graduated from Lowell Catholic High School then Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island after studying baking and food-service entrepreneurship. She opened Sugar Coated in March 2010.
Of course, COVID didn’t help business, but the crew kept baking through it.
“We kept our social media alive and we held our own competitions just to keep people engaged,” Jenn says. 
“Like everybody else, it was a slow crawl back to a newer normal.”
The folks at Sugar Coated Bakery aren’t afraid of a little competition, either. They have so far appeared on “The Big Bake” and “Chopped Sweets” on Food Network, as well as the Netflix series “Sugar Rush,” where they won their episode and earned $10,000.
Sugar Coated Bakery also hosts a “Cupcakes for Charity” event every Tuesday. Though the bakery is closed that day, they set up a table of miniature cakes outside, and folks can come by and grab some as long as they leave a food or monetary donation for Dracut Food Pantry.
Visit https://dracutbakery.com or call 978-226-8367 (that’s 978-22-OVENS).