On Aug. 30, Sarah O’Brien opened her second Big Softie soft serve ice cream location to go along with three Little Tart bakeries, all in the Atlanta area.
“To go from one employee, me, and one market table to over 80 employees and five stores is a pretty remarkable journey, especially for someone who has never taken a business class and got a degree in comparative literature and poetry,” O’Brien said.
“Here’s the thing – it turns out everything I needed to know to run a successful business I learned on a 100-acre farm in Brookfield, Ohio, from the four people who raised me.”
Those four people were dad, Paul O’Brien; mom, Tina; and Paul’s parents, John and Sophie O’Brien.
O’Brien told her story Aug. 29 when she was honored as a 2024 Valley Champion at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber’s Salute to Business.
The award touts valley natives who have gone on to accomplish greatness in their careers but did not forget where they came from, said event MC Lindsay McCoy.
“Sarah is passionate about using the best of what is grown and made in Georgia, and about moving the needle in the food industry toward higher wages and sustainable employment,” McCoy said.
O’Brien started baking at age 10, when her grandmother walked over from next door with a rolling pin and a bag of apples and proclaimed that O’Brien was old enough to bake.
“From her, I learned how to pay attention to the level of hydration in my pie dough and the sweetness of my apples,” O’Brien said. “She liked to bake with Rome and Cortland varieties from the orchard up the road in Hartford. She baked for her large family but also for the priests at the local church. From listening to her, I gleaned that if you could make 12 cinnamon rolls you can make 48.”
A trip to Paris as a teen, which exposed O’Brien to French pastries, didn’t hurt her enthusiasm for baking, which she turned to to earn extra money.
After getting a degree from Brown University, O’Brien moved to Atlanta, where friends had settled.
“The promise of more sunshine and a longer growing season sounded nice after the April snowstorms of my youth,” O’Brien said. “I got a full-time job at the (Centers for Disease Control) and baked on nights and weekends. My rickety old station wagon was just big enough to fit a tent, table, chalkboard sign, a red gingham tablecloth, a rack of pastries, and Little Tart Bakery was born.”
That was in 2010. She opened her first storefront in 2011.
While O’Brien’s grandfather taught her about savoring food and her mother taught her how to serve others, her father, the president of Rien Construction of Brookfield, taught her to work with honesty and integrity and stand by your work; never to look down on anyone; and to treat others as you want to be treated.
Beyond that, Paul O’Brien, who co-founded the O’Brien Memorial Children’s Fund and the Shenango Valley Foundation, which grew to become the Community Foundation of Western PA and Eastern OH, also taught her “about doing your best to improve your community, about sharing when you have more than enough.”
Sarah O’Brien raises money for organizations she believes in; co-founded Southern Restaurants for Racial Justice, which has given away more than $3 million to support black-owned businesses; and started a program within her company that awards $2,500 to an employee who wants to buy his or her first home, she said.
True success in business is lifting other people up, O’Brien said.
“When you can be both profitable and help people in ways that will positively impact them and their family for years to come, that feels like a superpower,” she said.