After a successful career in the medical field and raising a family of five daughters, Mandy Powell decided it was time to follow her long-held dream of being a baker.
At age 50, she enrolled in the Tyler Junior College Culinary Arts program and set about making it happen. Three years later, she opened Laurel & Pearl Euro-Southern Bakery in Tyler.
Starting from scratch
An Oklahoma native, Powell earned her bachelor’s degree and then attended graduate school in Tennessee. “I was an audiologist at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville, and then worked in sales for a company that made medical devices for testing infants’ hearing,” Powell said.
Eventually, the job moved her to Kansas City, where she met her husband, Larry. The couple had twin daughters, Lauren and Megan, and she became a stay-at-home mom. They later adopted three more girls, Addy, Jayme and Jordy, from Congo. The Powells relocated to Tyler in 2014.
“After staying home for 16 years, I decided it was time to do something else,” she said. “I hadn’t kept my medical licensure current, and I always thought it would be fun to open my own business. I love to bake, and we kind of felt like Tyler could use a business like this.”
In 2019, she got serious about the idea and went in search of a culinary school. She had assumed she would have to drive to Dallas but wasn’t sure if driving that far to school was a good idea.
“So, I googled ‘culinary schools near me’ and TJC popped up. It was a new program, and the first class starting at that time. So, I applied, met with [TJC Culinary Arts professor] Chef Larry Matson and started that fall,” she said.
“TJC was a great experience. Chef Matson and Chef (Rebekah) Pool want you to succeed. Watching reality TV shows these days, you would expect culinary school to be cutthroat and intense — and it’s a little intense but not cutthroat. They want very much to see you do well. I went in expecting I would have to be tough, but it wasn’t like that. There’s a lot of order and certain processes, but not in a bad way.”
She also learned that being a student at age 50 offers a much different perspective than during her first college experience as a teenager. “As an undergrad when you’re young, you would go to your classes and there were always those people in their 30s, 40s or 50s, who were asking all of the questions,” she laughed. “And as an 18-year-old, you’re kind of back in the back of the classroom going, ‘Would they please just hush so we can get out of here?’ I soon realized that I had become one of those people with the questions. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and that I had a lot to learn, I had all of these questions about how to do what I needed to do.”
The right ingredients
Part of the TJC culinary program involves a 350-hour internship in a professional bakery, so in early 2020, Powell started scouting out possible options that would help to guide her and provide the template for her own future business.
Macarons are one of many handcrafted pastries at Laurel & Pearl Euro-Southern Bakery.
“When we moved to Tyler from Kansas City, we noticed how many donut shops there are here, but no one had the cronut, a combination of a croissant and donut, which uses laminated dough — so we thought that might go over well. At TJC, Chef Matson said to always have your signature item and then pick maybe three for four other things that you’re going to offer in addition to that.”
Powell set out to find an internship where she could not only hone her skills in the baking business but especially in laminated doughs.
The mom of five girls found the perfect place with the perfect name — Five Daughters Bakery back in Nashville — and in 2020, she was on track to take her entire family to Tennessee for the summer when the pandemic shut everything down.
“When I contacted them in May, they were opening back up only for carry-out to customers’ cars. Also, half of the employees they had to let go [during the lockdown] were not coming back to work and they said they desperately needed me. So, while my husband stayed here in Tyler with the kids, I went on my own and, from May through August, I worked the night shift from midnight to 8 a.m. and learned all the things.”
Baked to perfection
After returning to Tyler, Powell was raring to go; but plans were put on hold due to construction delays and the high cost of materials caused by the pandemic. In December of 2022, Laurel & Pearl Euro-Southern Bakery opened for business in The Shops at La Piazza on Old Bullard Road.
Powell based the name on her twins.
“Lauren means ‘Laurel’ and Megan means ‘Little Pearl.’ Also, Laurel is considered a European emblem and Pearl is considered Southern,” she said.
Diana Pineda (left), one of Powell’s TJC classmates, serves as Laurel & Pearl’s lead patisserie person. Also pictured is current TJC culinary student Abbie Siber.
“People tell us all the time that Tyler really needed this place and they’re happy we’re here,” she said. “I feel like it’s not just something I wanted to do but that the community has supported it and gotten behind it. Two of my TJC classmates work here, and they’ve been with me from the beginning: Baylee Riley is my lead overnight person and Diana Pineda is my lead patisserie person. So, it’s been great.
“You know you’re in the right place when you’re working 60, 70, 80 hours a week sometimes but you’re still enjoying it. It’s hard, and if you didn’t like it, you would be miserable. I loved my audiology and medical career but not like I love this. So, for anyone who’s thinking about making a change, I would encourage them to go for it.”
For more information on TJC's Culinary Arts program, go to TJC.edu/Culinary.