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Bryon and Nicole Jessee, owners of the “dessert café” Shyndigz (1903 W. Cary St.), seem genuinely surprised by their success, despite the fact that they continue to have it.

The husband and wife team came to Richmond from Charleston, S.C., four years ago, trying to get closer to family and their hometown of Abingdon in Southwest Virginia.

The Jessees had been in Charleston so Bryon Jessee could attend culinary school at the prestigious Johnson & Wales University, but it was Nicole Jessee who got to work in the kitchen when the couple relocated to Richmond.

A self-taught artist, she applied her visual skills to flour and sugar and started baking cakes at home. The cakes seemed to turn out well, so she put a few on Craigslist and started taking custom orders for her homemade desserts.

The response was immediate, and within months demand for the cakes pushed her out of her home kitchen and into a retail space.

Shyndigz was born, opening at 5716 Patterson Ave. in June 2010.

“One of the scariest things we ever did was sign a lease on Patterson,” Bryon Jessee said.