About Us

Charlena Lee, born and raised in the small town of Franklinton, NC.  We are in the very center of downtown in the old Corner Drug Store building. Never dreamed that I would be baking and putting smiles of faces that I don’t know or have ever seen.  I do enjoy it.  We are a small family owned and operated bakery and ice cream parlor, but we love what we do.  It’s not a job most days.

Raised by my grandmother Leola, which was a wiz in the kitchen when it came to baking.  Pies and cakes were always a part of the weekly activities in the Mangum household.

I’ve always loved baking but never thought about doing it as business.  When I was working in the corporate world, I would occasionally bring in something sweet into the office. 

Fast forward, 21 years selling media, entered culinary pastry school during COVID and managed to hold down work, school and some health challenges, and now here we are at Sugar Grinders.

People say, Oh I love the name. In my media days, a co-worker always commented that Charlena is always on her grind.  Now we have the name Sugar Grinders Creamery and Bakery…Always Grinding and everything we do has sugar.

This business could not happen so smoothly without the help of my oldest daughter Albany.  She’s the creative one of my three daughters and she likes to bake too! 

Needless to say, we work well together.  We work hard, and we don’t like to disappoint any customer when they trust us to do something special for them.