We value each and everyone of our customers!
OUR PROMISE
Family is important to us here at The Sweet Stop, and we value each and everyone of our customers just as that; family. We want to see our family happy, fulfilled, and more importantly -- SMILING! Every event, every dessert, every detail is meant to be an experience that captures your most inner joy and results in satisfaction and of course a SMILE!
With everything that we do for our customers, we want you to leave with memories, and those memories of your experience should always leave you smiling. If you are smiling from the beginning of your interaction with us until the very end of your transaction, then we have succeeded in doing our job. When we say SMILE, we hold ourselves accountable in everything we do being:
S.pectacular, M.emorable, I.nnovative, L.egendary, and in E.xellence!
Now doesn't that SMILE look good on you!
Raina is the owner and founder of The Sweet Stop of RVA. She is a self-instructed cake artist that has proven that your gift can make a way for you, and can open endless doors of opportunity if you just believe in yourself. Years of success and failures has been Raina’s reality that dreams require radical faith and proves that quitting is NEVER an option.
Raina’s journey in cake-art began back in 2001 as a hobby that turned into her first cake business as “Cakes With Impressions”. Raina was then working as a legal assistant and was able to share her gift with her co-workers and their families. It didn’t take long for Raina to realize that cake was a way for her to express the creative side of her personality and to make others smile as an end result. She maintained a full time job in the legal field while continuing to perfect her cake craft over the years.
Her business went from Cakes With Impressions, to Sweet Kakes By Raina, to Sweet Kakes & Co. It was during the Sweet Kakes & Co. era that she finally realized that she was a natural born entrepreneur, and she was ready to spread her wings to venture into self-employment. She left her full time job, closed shop on her home based bakery business, and opened her first store in Regency Square Mall’s food court in 2011. Sweet Kakes & Co. was very successful in that location and Raina realized that more space was needed. In 2012, Sweet Kakes & Co. moved downtown to the VCU corridor off of Lombardy, where Raina was able to open the business portfolio even more to serve her clients and other businesses as well. Every mountain top story has a valley moment and in 2013 Raina’s valley moment had begun.
​
Sweet Kakes & Co. closed abruptly in 2013, forcing Raina to enter back into the corporate arena, but that was not the end of her story. Fast forward to the present and with the help and support of her husband, Dante Washington, her mother, Naomi Taylor and her four amazing children, Raina has returned to her passion, her gift, and her love for creativity in confectionery art! In November 2016, The Sweet Stop of RVA was formed and Raina vows to stay focused on continuously creating confectionery masterpieces that leave her clients happy, fulfilled, and most importantly “smiling”.
It is Raina’s desire to make sure that each creation is completed with love that can be seen and tasted in every bite! The Sweet Stop of RVA is Raina and she is here to stay! When times get tough and you can’t see your way through, remember this scripture that Raina lives by every day – Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight”.
