08/31/2026
A Message From Al-Taj Bakery
There is someone I feel deserves a very special thank you, and I want our customers to know the story behind what has happened here over the past week.
On August 20th, something happened that I truly believe was meant to happen.
A post from our bakery, asking for help during one of the hardest times we have faced, somehow landed on the For You page of a woman who wasn't even in the food industry. She is an artist, a business owner and a social media influencer who recently moved to Kentucky from California. She had never met me, didn't know my family, and had been to my bakery once a year ago.
But somehow, my post found her.
She saw that our business was struggling and that we were facing the possibility of having to close our doors. Instead of scrolling past, she reached out.
She immediately came to meet me and told me, “We can't let this business fail. Kentucky needs you.”
She offered to take over our social media and help us at no charge because she believed she could help get our story in front of people. Social media is her profession, and she has built large platforms of her own, so she knew exactly what she was doing.
What happened afterward has been incredible.
She helped bring attention to our bakery that we could have never reached on our own. The response has been unbelievable, and because of that response, she has even put her own businesses and social media work aside to help us here at the bakery so that we can keep up with all of you.
I don't think everyone realizes how much work has gone on behind the scenes to get us to this point.
Stephanie took over our social media on August 20th. She didn't spend weeks planning a campaign or waiting for the perfect moment. She came in, saw how badly we were struggling, and immediately got to work.
She started posting, sharing our story, interacting with people and showing the community what we have here. Six days later, on August 26th, one of her posts went viral.
Since then, our bakery has been busier than we have ever seen it. We've had people coming through our doors from all over, we've sold out of products, and we've had customers telling us they found us because of social media.
And what started as her simply taking over our social media to help us has turned into her being here, helping us keep up with the customers she helped bring through our doors.
That's something I will never forget.
So Stephanie, thank you. You were a complete stranger who saw that we needed help and decided to step in. You didn't have to do any of this, and you certainly didn't have to give your time away for free.
And to everyone who has supported us, shared our posts, commented, liked, visited, purchased food, and left us tips, thank you. Every single bit of support matters more than you know.
There is no Al-Taj Bakery without our customers, and we will never forget the role each and every one of you has played in helping us get to where we are today. But I also know that if my original cry for help had never landed on Stephanie's For You page on August 20th, there is a very real possibility that these doors would no longer be open today.
That is something I will never take for granted.
Stephanie, thank you for seeing us when we were struggling, believing in us when we needed it most, and deciding that our story was worth sharing.
You didn't just share a post. You helped give our family another chance.
