Ashleigh Luna’s Bake Shop opens inside Pryde’s Kitchen

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Ashleigh Luna had an epiphany after graduating from the University of Central Missouri three years ago. She remembered that her first love — dating back to her childhood Easy-Bake Oven as a child — had been to have her hands in the dough. So, after college, the broadcast-media major followed a different track, attending culinary school — the Denver campus of the prestigious Johnson & Wales — and completing an accelerated program.

Six weeks ago, the 25-year-old opened Ashleigh’s Bake Shop in the former Upper Crust space on the ground floor of Pryde’s Kitchen at 115 Westport Road. Luna had been a retail clerk at Pryde’s until the tiny bakery space became available. Louise Meyers, the owner of Pryde’s, says she fielded a few inquiries about the space, but Luna was in the right place at the right time — with the right idea.

“She has a culinary degree,” Meyers says, “and enthusiasm and talent. I wanted to give her new business a chance.”

Like the previous tenant (Upper Crust, whose owners, Jan Knobel and Elaine Van Buskirk, are now concentrating on their larger Overland Park location), Luna plans to focus on pie and other complementary baked goods.

“I’m not going to do cakes here,” says Luna, who operates the pie shop with her father, Charles Luna, a retired Grain Valley vitamin-store owner. “We’ve already been getting a lot of customer requests that we’re considering, like quiche and pizza. My father makes excellent pizza.”

Ashleigh Luna — her last name, which is Welsh, was originally Loony, and was changed by relatives a few generations ago — says she’s excited about owning her own business.

“It happened a lot faster than I thought it would,” she says.

She also isn’t intimidated by the upcoming busy pie season, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“We’re more than ready for it,” Luna says. “I worked at Pryde’s for two years before opening the Bake Shop, so I know what kind of volume that Upper Crust was doing during the holidays. We’re already planning our holiday pie offerings: apple and pecan and pumpkin, of course. and chocolate-pecan, pecan-cranberry and Dutch apple. And if we get requests for it, mince pie.”

Luna’s best-selling pies are apple, cherry and coconut cream (which is one of the creamiest, most delectable versions of this old-school favorite in town), each in feather-light crusts made with fresh butter, as well as brown-butter banana bars and assorted tarts.

Luna purchased her oven and refrigerated display case from Upper Crust, which threw in, gratis, a 1950s-era General Electric refrigerator.

“It works great,” Charles Luna says.

Ashleigh Luna’s fiancé, Jim Lower — a graduate student at the UMKC Conservatory of Music — installed a new awning and new light fixtures.

The kitchen area isn’t much bigger than a restaurant walk-in freezer, but the Lunas have figured out the right choreography to work in the space together.

“It helps that he’s not just my business partner — he’s my father,” Luna says. “He’s also a great baker. When I was growing up in Grain Valley, there wasn’t a traditional bakery in town, so either my mom or my dad made my birthday cakes.”

Ashleigh’s Bake Shop is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Luna is already taking orders for holiday pies at 816-598-3283.