Hours before the sun rises, Son Ly has already baked dozens of pastries.
Every day except Sunday, he is up and out the door by 3:30 a.m. to have scratch-made muffins, tarts and croissants ready for customers by the time the coffee shop he owns with his wife opens at 6 a.m.
Tucked — almost hidden — on the ground floor of an office building on Broadway, just off of Long Beach Boulevard, the tender care that Ly puts in isn’t completely apparent until you walk inside DoLy’s Delectables, where you’re met with a long glass bakery case stuffed with his handiwork.
DoLy’s — pronounced “DOH-lees” — is a name Ly and his wife Julie Do created by combining their two last names. This month, they celebrated 15 years in business.
“This is our life. I mean, we started the journey together, me and her when we were dating, and it’s everything,” Ly said.
For Do and Ly, opening DoLy’s really felt like a dive into the deep end. Ly had only had a couple of years of experience working in a restaurant, had only been dating Do for a few years, and knew nothing about Long Beach.
“We just decided to take a leap of faith and give it a shot,” Do said.
Ly had been working in real estate for the past nine years, but when the housing market crashed in 2008 and people around him were being laid off, Ly knew he had to follow a different career path.
He has loved being in the kitchens since he was 6 years old, growing up cooking with his grandmother, so he decided to try his hand at culinary school. While he attended Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Pasadena, Ly was laid off from his real estate job.
After culinary school, Ly got a job working with a French pastry chef in Santa Monica, where he learned everything he knows about croissants and pastries. A couple of years later, he decided it was time to open his own bakery with Do.
They worked many long days — just the two of them — hoping customers would arrive.
“They always say, if you make it in the first five years, then you’re good after that. But we’re like, ‘Are we even gonna make it to two years?’” Do said.
Fifteen years on, they now have a loyal customer base where regulars are known by name. And the quality of Ly’s baking is apparent even to one-off visitors. In a comment on Facebook, one said she bought a muffin while visiting Long Beach last year and often considers flying across the country just to get another.
The couple has put a lot into making DoLy’s Delectables work. The couple has only taken three weeks off in 15 years. But they’ve also attracted a dedicated staff — meaning they no longer have to work the regular 16-hour days required when it was just the two of them.
The couple says much of the credit for their success goes to those longtime employees, who they say have really gone out of their way to support the shop by promoting it and picking up supplies even while off the clock.
“We wouldn’t be able to make it to this point without them,” Do said.
But on Monday, Ly himself will still be up at 3:30 a.m. to start the oven and roll out the dough.
DoLy’s Delectables, 245 E Broadway, is open Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. They also offer a full menu of coffee drinks, breakfast, juices and sandwiches.