Inman Park Gluten-Free Bakery Hell Yeah Is Expanding

Inman Park Gluten-Free Bakery Hell Yeah Is Expanding

Alejandra Luaces is expanding her popular gluten-free bakery business Hell Yeah Gluten Free (HYGF) to Decatur and Adair Park in 2023.

New locations of the Inman Park bakery, which opened in 2019 near LLoyd’s along DeKalb Avenue, should open in February 2023 beside Inner Voice Brewing in Decatur, with HYGF on Murphy Avenue opening later next year. The Murphy Avenue location is just down the street from the Window and La Bodega at the Met, and less than a block from coffee shop Finca to Filter inside co-working space Create ATL.

Alejandra Luaces.

Luaces says the Inman Park shop will remain open but will operate a little differently once the Adair Park location opens on Murphy Avenue. She plans to move most of the bakery’s production to Adair Park in the future. This location should become the commissary kitchen for the Decatur and Inman Park shops, where Luaces hopes to eventually offer baking classes. “There’s a lot of options, we just need to see what makes the most sense for the future,” Luaces tells Eater.

While Adair Park will function mostly as a production and nationwide shipping facility, Luaces says it will include a small retail shop. The Decatur location takes over a former Christian Science Reading Room and will operate similarly to the shop in Inman Park.

“[Decatur] is a bit different from our other two, a little smaller and cozier. It’s a much more family-oriented neighborhood vibe,” says Luaces. “There is a retail window nook in the front that I can’t wait to make into a little kid fishbowl with cute pillows and maybe a colorful mural.”

Luaces first began baking for her co-workers at Atlanta-based Mailchimp, where she worked as a software engineer for nearly three years. She eventually quit her job to focus on growing her burgeoning bakery business, working out of her Cabbagetown loft and selling baked goods on Instagram weekly.

After raising funds through a Kickstarter campaign, Luaces finally opened a permanent location of the bakery in 2019 at the Dickey. Lines typically snake out the door in the mornings with people heading in for one of HYGF’s doughnuts, pop-tarts, and biscuit sandwiches.

Despite the many hardships the pandemic caused for Luaces and her team during the first year of the health crisis, the bakery thrived, mainly due to the extra safety precautions put in place to protect both staff and patrons from the virus, many of whom live with autoimmune diseases and deficiencies.

“Business has been great. We are still struggling with the growing pains of small space and small team and big demand, which I am grateful for,” Luaces says. “It’s definitely a ‘good problem’ to have. We work hard every day to learn how we can serve Atlanta better.”

308 West Ponce de Leon Avenue, Decatur; 920 Murphy Avenue, Atlanta. hellyeahglutenfree.com.