TAMPA, Fla. — The kitchen has always been a special place for Shonnika Denise.

What You Need To Know

  • Synergy Sweets by Shonnika Denise delayed its grand opening because of Hurricane Helene    

  • After overcoming that storm, the business was able to do its grand opening the following week but abruptly had to close down again for Hurricane Milton

  • Milton knocked out power to the business for five days, causing Denise to have to throw away thousands of dollars of baking materials that would spoil

  • Despite the storms, Synergy Sweets is now open and thriving in its Tampa location, with Denise wanting to open up more bakeries in the future

“Cooking was my release,” she said. “When I had other jobs, it was just the thing I like to do for fun.”

Denise says food, especially desserts, brings moments of joy and happiness for her.

That’s why, in 2015, she graduated culinary school and realized what she wanted to do for the rest of her life was to make decadent desserts.

“I took my very first baking and pastry class, and I was like, oh, no, this is it,” Denise said.

Ever since then, she had the idea of one day opening her own shop and calling it Synergy Sweets.

The time it takes to bake cookies isn’t that long, but the process of finding a building for her dream business was.

“We had to build the whole thing out,” Denise said. “So, permitting and, you know, health department and all those things. It was a very long build out process.”

Three years of that process eventually led to Synergy Sweets by Shonnika Denise becoming a reality in Tampa.

After all that work, Denise finally had a grand opening date set for her business on Sept. 27.

“That’s the day that I planned for,” Denise said. “That’s the day that we have the fliers made for it. That was the day.”

The only problem was that Hurricane Helene made landfall on Sept. 26.

So that magical grand opening Denise was hoping for had to be pushed back a week, which, at the time, wasn’t ideal, but they were still able to get things going — for only about two days.

“Remember, we’re prepping for a major grand opening that wasn’t really able to, like, it wasn’t able to happen,” she said.

Because then came Hurricane Milton, which knocked power out at Synergy Sweets for five days, resulting in Denise having to toss out thousands of dollars of materials that spoiled.

“I just cried,” she said. “Because it was literally nothing I could do. I feel like I’m getting emotional thinking about it now.”

That dream seemed like everything was going against it, but Denise is one tough cookie.

She came in second in a national dessert competition, called Dessert Wars, and consistently works for many hours to bake everything to perfection.

So, she was never going to give up.

“There are days like today that I don’t even go to sleep,” Denise said.

When she got power back, Denise was back to baking and now has finally opened her store for good.

Denise isn’t slowing down for anything. She’s determined to keep this delicious dream a reality.

Synergy Sweets by Shonnika Denise is open Wednesday through Saturday.