Olathe-based Brown Suga is currently on the move, in more ways than one.
In November 2024, the cookie shop just four years in business at the time, caught a victory in Kansas City’s AltCap Your Biz pitch competition, which gives Kansas City entrepreneurs the chance to win a financial boost for the growth of their business. The owners walked away with a $25,000 grand prize, which they used to acquire a new food truck.
That’s where Reba Paul — who owns Brown Suga with her daughters, Ebony Paul-Harris and Asia Lockett — said the growth was supposed to pause, for the time being. But when a new space became available at the Park Place shopping center in Leawood, their vision became a bit bigger.
In early 2026, that space will officially be home to Brown Suga’s second retail shop. If all goes according to plan, Paul said, then Brown Suga will open in its new Leawood spot in February.
Brown Suga is coming to 11529 Ash St.
- The cookie shop is taking over a space at the Park Place shopping center in Leawood, just off 115th Street and Nall Avenue.
- There, it will be wedged in between jewelry shop Dalia’s Silver Lining and romance bookstore Smitten Booktique.
- Once it opens, Brown Suga’s Leawood hours will be 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
Brown Suga will offer its cookies and other sweets
Customers at Brown Suga can find a wide variety of cookies.
Paul said some of the bakery’s top sellers are its “monster” (with M&Ms) and lemon crinkle cookies, along with seasonal offerings like Biscoff cookie butter and banana pudding cookies.
Other offerings include chocolate chip, peanut butter, double chocolate and snickerdoodle.
The new Leawood shop will also offer some other sweets, Paul said. Those will include ice cream, coffee drinks, lemonades, brownies and peanut clusters.
This marks Brown Suga’s second retail shop
The concept for Brown Suga was born in 2020 — when Ebony Paul-Harris, the bakery’s primary owner, began baking in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was a shared effort with her sister, Asia Lockett, who joined Paul-Harris in the kitchen after she closed a daycare she owned due to the pandemic.
Their mother, Reba Paul, remembers tasting their cookies and being sure that they could sell them if they wanted to. At the time, Paul said, her daughters insisted it was solely a hobby.
But then things got interesting.
“We came up with a little wager that they would make some sample packages, I would take them around to multiple people, and then if they turned into orders, then they had to start a business,” Paul said. “Every last one of them turned into an order.”
The brand steadily worked up a following by making appearances at pop-ups across the Kansas City metro area for two years, before Brown Suga opened its first retail location in May 2023. That shop operates at 1066 W. Santa Fe St. in Olathe.
Brown Suga also has multiple wholesale partnerships, including with local retailer Made in KC — which also owns nearby Outta the Blue Cafe, where Brown Suga’s cookies are also sold.
In that sense, Brown Suga isn’t totally new to Leawood, but the new shop still signifies a new chapter that the owners look forward to for their first brick-and-mortar store there.
“We love the area, and it very closely matches our brand,” Paul said. “They have a lot of amazing events down there just in general that attract a lot of customers, so we’re excited.”
Want more food and drink news? New Lenexa restaurant serving ‘authentic’ Pakistani food aims to create community
