Marilyn Ramirez Segundo can still picture her mother in the kitchen she grew up in. She remembers the stove was almost always on as her mom cooked every single day, multiple times a day while wearing her favorite apron. The kitchen walls were painted a vibrant yellow that she chose as her favorite, and it still matches her personality today. When Marilyn started dreaming about a bakery of her own years later, that apron and the yellow kitchen she spent hours in were the first things that came to mind. Putting the name Yellow Apron on the sign felt like an authentic way to bring her traditions and the feeling of home into her community.
By the time Yellow Apron Baking Co. launched in 2015, Marilyn had already gone through culinary school and worked her way through other kitchens and bakeries. Her passion project started as a side gig: late-night cookie trays and custom cakes squeezed around a full time job. In those early years she said yes to everything and everyone. If a customer wanted a custom cookie set, she made it. If they wanted cupcakes or a one off cake, she figured it out.
The first turning point came when she finally did something that felt risky: she started saying no. No to custom work that didn’t fit her goals. No to projects that stole time and energy from the parts of baking she loved. That decision freed her to focus on the core of Yellow Apron instead of trying to be everything at once.
The other shift was external. In 2021, Yellow Apron joined Old Pearland Farmers Market. That changed everything. Instead of scattered pop ups, she suddenly had a consistent local audience. People started coming specifically to her table asking for her cookies. Fellow vendors became friends and, eventually, partners.
Marilyn’s husband and partner Louis has been in restaurants for more than two decades, working nearly every front of house and back of house role before moving into management. He has run scratch barbecue kitchens without timers, managed high volume corporate restaurants, and trained teams to move fast without cutting corners. He also knows what it looks like when big companies reduce people to numbers. Yellow Apron, to him, is the opposite of that: a chance to build something where the person serving you and the person making your food are invested in the neighborhood.
When the Pearland Innovation Hub hosted their 2025 pitch competition, she almost missed the deadline. A community member offering a last minute reminder telling her she needed to apply pushed her to try. She did, and they won. That win threw a spotlight on Yellow Apron and confirmed what their customers already knew: this little bakery had momentum.
Yellow Apron had a space for years at a counter inside La Casita and are always present at the Old Pearland Farmers Market, quietly turning casual diners into devoted cookie customers. After years of hard work they have just opened new location with a front door.
Yellow Apron Bakery’s new brick and mortar café is built around a simple idea: create a space where people can find peace and room to breathe. Marilyn is clear that she is not trying to open another productivity zone full of laptops and to do lists. She imagines something softer.
“Our key focus is to create a space for our community to gather,” she said. There are already plenty of places to grind. Yellow Apron is meant to be a place to sit, talk, and feel human. “It’s more just come here and exist,” she added. “Exist for a little while, enjoy a cookie and a hot tea or, you know, breakfast taco and a fresh cold pressed juice. You know, just chill.”
From the moment you walk in, the food on display reflects that posture: comforting, thoughtfully made, and not overly complicated.
On the sweet side, Yellow Apron is known for their cookies. They offer snicker doodles, oatmeal raisin, and a seasonal fall favorite pumpkin chai snickerdoodle. But the classic chocolate chip is their best seller for a reason.
Marilyn plans to keep expanding her offerings with scones, muffins, and simple cakes and cupcakes. The goal is not ornate custom work; it is reliable, delicious staples you can build your week around.
The savory side of Yellow Apron grew out of a need. At the farmers market, there were some mornings when there was plenty to shop for but nowhere to grab breakfast. Marilyn and Lou started offering breakfast tacos for visitors to have something savory available. What began as a thoughtful offering turned into a signature staple.
Their tacos are straightforward: bacon, egg and cheese; potato and cheese; familiar combinations done well. They do not come overloaded or gimmicky. Lou likes to say that simplicity goes a long way, and customers have proved him right. Even after more food vendors joined the market, people would walk up asking specifically for Yellow Apron’s breakfast tacos.
In the café, they have room to build on that. The new menu will soon include:
• Breakfast tacos and breakfast sandwiches built on quality bread and tortillas.
• Lunch sandwiches that make it easy to grab something satisfying without feeling sluggish afterward.
• Healthy yogurt and fruit bowls.
• A House made granola returning from Yellow Apron’s earliest days.
Lou’s restaurant background shows up in how all of this is assembled. He thinks constantly about flow: how to design the line so a busy morning can move quickly, how to prep so the food stays fresh, how to structure a menu that lets them feed a crowd without sacrificing quality. He is already planning baguette based sandwich trays and flexible catering packages for gatherings, priced so that families and small groups can say yes without flinching.
Underneath the menu is a commitment to ingredients that feel as clean as you would want at home. Marilyn said she obsesses over ingredients and process. She chooses higher quality components even when they cost more, and she refuses to bake with anything she would not be comfortable serving her own family. If a chocolate supplier cuts corners, she finds someone else. She has watched big brands announce plans for lab grown chocolate and drawn a hard line. Yellow Apron will not be part of that shift.
They do their best to avoid artificial preservatives and unnecessary additives. “If it’s not necessary, there’s no reason for it to be in your food,” Marilyn says. “If an ingredient doesn’t meet our standards, we’re not going to serve it, and If it’s not something that we would consume, we’re definitely not going to pass that on to anyone else.”
That philosophy shapes everything from the oils they cook with to the products they choose from other vendors.
Yellow Apron is not just about what they make in house. It is also a showcase for other local small businesses they have met along the way.
They build their sandwiches on bread from Three Bros Loaves, the sourdough bakers Marilyn calls “three beautiful, amazing souls whose passion shows up in every loaf.” Jams come from The Biggs Farm, known for spreads that are bright and not overly sweet, often made with fruit they grow or source directly from local farms. Salsas and hot sauces from JC’s Salsa and Rude Horses give customers a chance to taste what their fellow market vendors do best. Fresh juices come from Gen and Juice, whose owners are crafting an exclusive juice just for Yellow Apron’s café.
They also carry Munch Kraft’s roasted cashews and almonds, which are cooked without oil for a cleaner snack, and they will soon add French macarons from Sister Shop Goods.
All of these partnerships grew out of real relationships at the farmers market and in local networking spaces. When Marilyn says they want to stay “as local as we can,” she can point to the shelves and prove it.
All of it sits under a tagline that has shifted over the years and finally settled into something that feels right: “From our kitchen to your table, only the best.” For Marilyn, that promise is as much about presence as it is about product. Early in her journey, she hid behind her work and rarely told her own story. Now she understands that people want to know the person behind the apron. They want to know who is baking their cookies, who is making their breakfast, who is choosing which local products get a spot on the shelf.
That is what this new space is for. When you walk into Yellow Apron Baking Co. now, you are not just stepping into a bakery café. You are stepping into Marilyn’s childhood kitchen grown up and moved into Pearland, and into a room Lou has spent his whole career learning how to run well. You can see the crocheted cookie mascot in his tiny yellow apron on the counter, order a chocolate chip cookie or a breakfast taco, and talk directly to the people who built the place.
They are not trying to be the biggest or the flashiest. They are trying to be the kind of neighborhood spot where you recognize the faces behind the counter, trust what is in your food, and feel welcome enough to stay for one more cup of tea.
Stop by Yellow Apron Bakery Co. at:
www.yellowapronbakingcotx.com
5012 Broadway St.
Pearland, Texas 77581
(832) 895-9226
sweet@yellowapronbakingcotx.com
