Ten years ago, Caty Johnston stepped behind the counter at a small Cypress bakery and never looked back. Today, as the owner of Suzybeez Bakery alongside her husband Tom, she has built something that goes far beyond buttercream and fondant — she has built a place that feels like home to the community she has loved her entire life.
Caty grew up right here in Cypress and trained at the Culinary Institute Le Notre, where instructor Philippe Richard helped shape her technical foundation. She went on to work for the original Suzybeez owner, Susan, before she and Tom purchased the bakery in 2016. Stints in restaurant and hotel kitchens — Tom spent years as a sous and head chef — rounded out their business savvy. When they took over, Jolene, their oldest, was a newborn. Now, three kids and a decade later, the bakery is as much a part of the family as anyone at the dinner table.
"Being local to Cypress and still serving people I have known since I was a child is by far my favorite part of the bakery," Caty says. "I have customers come in who used to be my teacher or a friend of my parents. I have been doing some kids’ birthday cakes for over ten years now. Having those connections is unmatched."
Those connections extend to the screen, too. In 2023, Caty and Tom competed on Netflix’s Sugar Rush: Extra Sweet (Season 3, Episode 3) and took home the win with a gravity-defying magician’s bag and a levitating top hat. Keeping the secret from family and staff until the watch party was, Caty laughs, the hardest part. “Tom keeps me so level-headed in high-stress situations,” she says. “The whole experience was completely unreal, and I could not have done it without him.”
That partnership carries over into every aspect of the bakery. Tom handles all the baking while Caty focuses on decorating, giving them each their own space in a shared kitchen — a dynamic that took some figuring out in the early days when family members filled the staff roster. Now, with a lean team of five, the rhythm is smooth. Tom even coaches their daughter’s softball team and their son’s T-ball team, a work-life balance that Caty says was always the dream.
Ample accolades have followed. Suzybeez has won Living Magazine’s “Best Bakery” award every year for a decade and claims the Nextdoor “Best Bakery in Cypress” title year after year, backed by a near-perfect Google rating from over a thousand customers. But Caty is quick to note that awards don’t pay the bills in today’s climate.
“Owning a bakery is so competitive right now,” she says. “What we do is a luxury, and when customers put up that kind of money, we want everything to be perfect — the product, the experience, all of it.”
Part of what makes Suzybeez resilient is the team behind it. Destiny, who joined as a dishwasher when Caty first took ownership, has grown into Caty’s right hand — a lead cookie decorator and baker who has been there through all ten years. “I literally could not do the bakery without her,” Caty says simply.
As for the next ten years, Caty keeps it honest: “For the last ten years, Tom’s five-year plan question has had the same answer — make it five more years.” But there is real hope behind the humor. She talks about growing their custom order volume, possibly opening a second location, and building something her kids might one day want to step into. Jolene, turning eleven this month, is already obsessed with the bakery.
What Caty and Tom have built at Suzybeez is rarer than a perfect buttercream finish — it's a neighborhood institution, the kind of place that marks your milestones and becomes part of your family's story. Here's to ten years, and to all the celebrations still to come.