Laura and Tommy Graham started baking together in 2014, when Laura made her own five-tier wedding cake. The shop opened in 2021, inside the restored Hutchinson's Buildings on High Street West. Cake counter, afternoon tea, and the Sweet Pea vintage trailer for the days you want the bakery on wheels.
Wednesday to Sunday. Three tables inside. Cake counter open for walk-ins.
All three come out of the same back-of-shop kitchen on the same morning, made by Tommy, Laura and Mel. The trailer just lets us tow it out to your day.
Cheesecakes (Tommy's section), brownies, traybakes, macarons, Victoria sponges, lemon drizzle. Whatever Laura and Tommy baked that morning, walked across the shop floor and slid into the glass cabinets. Walk in, point, take it home.
Twenty-two pounds fifty per person. Finger sandwiches, quiche of the day from Mel's kitchen, two scones with clotted cream and jam, a macaron, three desserts including raspberry white-chocolate cheesecake and a strawberry and cream eclair, plus a pot of Yorkshire Tea with refill. Three tables, five seats apiece. Pre-booking essential.
A 1960s Rice Beaufort horsebox, sourced from the Cotswolds and converted in the back garden over the winter of 2019 to 2020. We tow her out for weddings, corporate events and summer parties. Same baking, same hands, just on wheels.
In 2014 Laura decided to make her own wedding cake. Five tiers, the first cake she had ever made, finished a few days before the big day. It was not perfect. The passion was. Soon after, she started Sweet Occasions, taking commissions from friends and family.
We looked for a shop in Sunderland for years and never found the right unit. So we changed tack: take the bakery on the road. In early 2020 we drove down to the Cotswolds and brought home a vintage Rice Beaufort horsebox. Laura drew the conversion plans. We did the build ourselves in the back garden over the winter. We called her Sweet Pea.
Sweet Pea spent the summer of 2020 at Wynyard Hall, Tyne Bank Brewery and a regular pitch at Seaburn beach. When the summer ended, we resumed the search for a permanent shop. We found it at the restored Mackie's Corner in 2021, opened among the first independents to move in, and we have been there ever since.
"A Sunderland bakery that feels a little bit like Paris." Sunderland Echo, 2024
The shop sits inside Hutchinson's Buildings, the Victorian sandstone block at the corner of High Street West and Fawcett Street. The corner unit has been known as Mackie's Corner for over a hundred and sixty years, after Robert Mackie, the first tenant, ran a silk top-hat business and passers-by would stop to watch his employees making hats through the corner window.
The eastern part of the building burned in the Great Fire of Sunderland in 1898. Mackie's Corner itself survived. After a long fallow period, the Kirtley family bought the building in 2017 and restored it with the backing of Historic England and Sunderland City Council. The Sweet Petite was among the first independents to move into the renovated corner unit.
We are not a bakery chain. We have three indoor tables, a glass cabinet for the cake counter, and one small kitchen at the back. Laura built the shop's interior to feel like the patisseries she has visited in Paris, the Marais and Saint-Germain. White walls, soft light, vintage china, the cakes lined up so you can see them through the glass before you sit down.
Afternoon tea at the shop is £22.50 per person and runs Wednesday to Sunday. Sweet Pea trailer hire is quoted on your date, location and rough guest count. Send the form and we will come back within the working week, usually within a day.
For July and August 2026, bookings open at 6pm on Saturday 24 May 2026. Sittings released in the order they arrive.
The Sweet Petite
103 High Street West
Sunderland SR1 1TX
0191 565 6553
We are inside the restored Hutchinson's Buildings on the corner of High Street West and Fawcett Street, three minutes from Sunderland Station, two doors from Master Debonair. The afternoon-tea seats are upstairs in the back room; the cake counter is at the front by the window.
Booking is essential. There are three tables inside the shop and the afternoon tea is a one-and-a-half-hour sitting. We typically take bookings two to four weeks ahead. July and August slots for 2026 open on Saturday 24 May at 6pm sharp, through the booking link on this site. Walk-ins for the cake counter and a slice of cake are always welcome during our Wednesday to Sunday hours.
Larger than most. Almost every afternoon-tea booking takes leftovers home in a box. The tower is built around two scones, three desserts, a quiche slice and finger sandwiches per person. We will give you the box at the end of the sitting and a smile if you cannot finish it.
No. We trade Wednesday to Sunday. Monday and Tuesday are bake-and-prep days at the back of the shop, plus the Sweet Pea team running events out of Mackie's Corner. If you have walked past on a Monday and seen the lights off, that is why.
Yes. Sweet Pea is available for weddings, corporate events and summer parties across the North East. We have traded at Wynyard Hall, Tyne Bank Brewery and a regular pitch at Seaburn beach. Email Events at thesweetpetite dot co dot uk with your date, location and rough guest count and we will come back with a quote within the working week.
A small selection rotates through the cake counter each week. The afternoon tea can be adapted with notice. Please ring 0191 565 6553 a week before your booking to confirm we can accommodate, particularly for a coeliac diagnosis where cross-contamination matters.