Kristal Bryant’s bubbly personality matches her bright pink bakery store.

“Pink is my favorite color. I learned in school that colors make people feel comfortable and are attractive to customers,” Bryant said. “Pink tends to make people feel happy. So we want our products to be bright and colorful so that our customers feel good when they eat our cupcakes or milkshakes.”

You could call Bryant, owner of K&J’s Elegant Pastries, a superstar baker. She has created wedding cakes for celebrities like former Real Housewives of Atlanta star, Porsha Williams, and most recently cupcakes for rapper turned radio personality and reality show star, Da Brat and wife, Jesseca Harris-Dupart. She even helped celebrate the local grand opening of Slutty Vegan in Woodlawn, by creating their own branded cake.

But that doesn’t stop her from being hands on in the kitchen every single day. In fact, it’s a family business. Hence the name of the bakery. The “K” stands for Kristal and “J” for Jonathan.

Her husband, Jonathan Bryant, helps with business operations, and her daughter, Jakaiya Bryant, assists with customer service.

“He’s [Jonathan] my business partner. He’s not in the kitchen per say, but he can handle the milkshakes in the front of the store, but he doesn’t help with the cakes. He handles our finances, credit card processing, inventory, things that don’t have to be managed in the store.”

Bryant grew up in both Ensley and Pratt City. She attended Virginia College’s culinary school but decided to drop out when The Cheesecake Factory opened in The Summit in 2004. She worked there for a few years where she learned how to cook everything on the menu, and perfected the craft of making cheesecakes.

Ironically, Bryant isn’t the biggest fan of sweets. She originally studied savory dishes while in culinary school. When she was working at the Cheesecake Factory, she realized she doesn’t like creating the same dishes everyday, but instead she likes the art behind creating bakery items.

“I’ve always enjoyed art, like painting and drawing,” Bryant said. “When I took art classes at Jackson-Olin High School. A recruiter from the Art Institute of Atlanta came to our art class in 9th grade and mentioned culinary arts and that struck a chord with me. I learned I could combine the two worlds I love the most: Food and art.”

Immediately, Bryant made it her goal to attend the Art Institute and was accepted into the school by the 11th grade. However, her dad just lost his job, her older sister was already in college, so she wasn’t able to afford to enroll.

Bryant made her way to Virginia College instead and taught herself how to make creative desserts on her own after her shift at The Cheesecake Factory ended.

“I would work 11-12 hour shifts and come home and teach myself how to bake, ice cakes…it was just trial and error,” she said.

In 2013, she opened her first store location in Alabaster. But the name K&J Elegant Pastries didn’t become popular until Kristal and Jonathan opened their food truck in 2017. That was when people in Birmingham started to know about K&J’s.

“Everytime we came to Birmingham, we would sell out,” she said. “So we knew we had to open a store in Birmingham. We also saw a lot of people from our credit card sales that people would drive from Birmingham to Alabaster to our store. Like 65%.”

Today, K&J’s offers a variety of special flavored cupcakes like sweet potato, triple berry, strawberry cheesecake, cotton candy, cookies n cream. That’s just to name a few.

But the bakery’s signature “Kolossal Milkshakes” is what has gained them so much popularity on social media. K&J’s has more than 100,000 followers between Facebook and Instagram.

“My favorite milkshake is the K&J Original,” Bryant said about the mix of her and her husband’s favorite desserts in one. That milkshake features vanilla ice cream, chocolate swirl, oreo crumbles, brownie, whipped cream, chocolate drizzle, ice cream cookie sandwich, with a cherry on top.

But Bryant said the Cotton Candy milkshake is the most popular among kids, and probably the most colorful shake she offers. The sweet drink has vanilla ice cream, Sixlet candy pearls, cotton candy cupcake, a lollipop and three different types of cotton candy on top.

Bryant said all of her elaborate desserts are either inspired by items that she likes or the current season of the year.

For example, Bryant loves candied yams, so she made a Sweet Potato cupcake. That flavor is one of her bestsellers. But she also has a seasonal cupcake called “Karlan’s Soul Food”. The dessert only debuts around Thanksgiving and includes a honey cornbread cupcake, candied yams frosting on top, with a piece of chicken pinned to the frosting and a drizzle of honey.

In 2021, Bryant decided to close her Alabaster location and open a new store in Uptown facing the new City Walk. Bryant said the new Birmingham location is far busier than her Alabaster location, not to mention all the visitors she draws during entertainment events in the nearby BJCC.

In 2022, Bryant opened her second location in Hoover. She said the biggest difference with her Hoover location is that the space is larger and can be used as an event space. Bryant coordinates birthday parties at the location and partners with Front Porch to provide the pizza for the parties.

“In Birmingham all of our strawberry flavors sell out every time,” Bryant said. “In Hoover, our crowds keep it safe. They’ll get the chocolate and vanilla flavors every time.”

Now, Bryant serves a lot of clients in other cities like Atlanta, Montgomery, Tuscaloosa, and Huntsville. And she dreams to open K&J’s Elegant Pastries in multiple states.

“I’ve seen a lot of businesses expand but lose their quality. And I value quality more than anything. So, on one hand, I want to expand, but I want to make sure that if I do that, we keep the quality that we’re known for.”