Just two years after Anna Echols put up a wall to decrease her space for One Belle Bakery, that wall is coming down.

“I really didn’t think we would need that much space at the time,” Echols said of the bakery’s location in the shopping center at Shipyard Boulevard and 17th Street.

Echols figured she needed just enough room for a kitchen, a small display case and a space for customers to come in and place orders.

But over the past couple of years, Echols said she has started to see a trend developing in terms of custom orders. Many people no longer want just a wedding cake or a specialty birthday cake. They want to provide their guests with a variety of miniature sweets as well.

“People want everything from mini pies to mini banana puddings,” Echols said.

As One Belle has provided more and more of these miniatures for events, it has seen more and more customers coming into the shop expecting to be able to buy them.

“I realized that people were seeking these types of desserts out, sometimes to take home or sometimes just to treat themselves to a sweet,” Echols said.

The removal of the wall will allow for a larger kitchen as well as more display cases and a café area with seating. Echols and her team will create a wide variety of cookies, cupcakes, breakfast pastries and sweets each day. They will also begin coffee service.

“The expansion will allow One Belle become more of a destination,” Echols said. “Rather than just placing orders, customers can come in and enjoy a sweet and a cup of coffee or pick something out to take with them.”

The space Echols is moving into was once owned by her father, Doug Echols, who operated Rack N’ Roll, a billiards pub in the late 1980s. Echols hopes the renovations will be complete by mid-January.

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