Hundreds of cinnamon rolls initially believed to have been stolen from a South Florida bakery have been recovered, though the bakery’s proprietor says the incident still price her some critical dough.
In an August 22 social media post, Julie Pierre, the proprietor of Roll and Dough bakery in Sunrise, famous that around $3,000 price of cinnamon buns destined for a native farmer’s market never arrived — placing the Uber supply driver in the scorching seat.
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“Nearly 400 of our cinnamon rolls disappeared during an Uber delivery,” Pierre later defined on social media. “As a 21-year-old running a small business on my own, I was scared, overwhelmed and trying to recover days of work and thousands of dollars in products.”
Pierre, who began the baking facet hustle to help pay for her felony justice research at Florida International University, added that with little clarification as to why the order was lacking, Uber suggested her to file a police report. Meanwhile, her social media following — which contains lots of of hundreds of followers on Instagram and TikTook — precipitated the story to unfold rapidly.
Five days later, police discovered the stray cinnamon buns and found why they were never delivered — leaving Pierre to exclaim, merely, that “it’s a little insane.”
The rolls were discovered, but the financial loss was baked in
Pierre added, on social media, that 5 days after the cinnamon rolls vanished, detectives knowledgeable her that the Uber driver was “detained by immigration authorities during the delivery.”
Law enforcement officers confirmed to native media that the driver, Ivan Dario Rico Molano of Colombia, “admitted to being in the United States without legal authorization” and was taken into custody by Customs and Border Protection.
After his arrest, the driver reportedly called someone to decide up his car — which they did, without data of the supply. Days later, the individual called native police about the sweets.
“We had to throw them all away,” Pierre informed the Tampa Bay Times of the returned cinnamon rolls. “We’re still out $3,100. Stolen or not, we suffered a loss.”
Neither Pierre nor Uber responded to Moneywise’s request for remark, but Uber’s basic phrases and situations for companies word that it bears “no legal responsibility” for “any loss, damage, non-delivery or delay in the delivery of items.”
Pierre did offer an apology on social media, though, for describing the state of affairs as a theft, while pledging to donate a portion of her bakery’s proceeds to help pay for the driver’s legal counsel.
Still, the icing on the bun after all of this is that Pierre’s bakery facet hustle appears to be on a roll. With her growing buyer base, Pierre began a GoFundMe to help raise money to broaden manufacturing infrastructure and, appropriately, “secure a reliable vehicle that can be used to transport our products.”
The fundraiser presently sits at practically $4,200 — more than midway to its $7,000 purpose.
How to keep a facet hustle on a roll — even when issues go fallacious
Thirty-three % of Americans presently have a facet hustle, according to a 2026 survey, pulling in an average of $1,242 per month — additional money that 80% of facet hustlers said “improves their quality of life” while practically half said “contributes to long-term financial security.”
Pierre’s instance, though, reveals just how rapidly one financial blow can influence business and, probably, your financial stability.
Experts advocate other ways to help insulate your facet hustle from unexpected money losses, including the following three easy steps you can begin working toward right now:
1. Build yourself a money buffer
Cash buffer days are basically the quantity of days your money reserves could keep your small business or facet hustle afloat during an surprising disaster.
Chase Bank says to calculate all of your incoming income (money influx), the money your business spends day by day (money outflow) and how much money you have on hand at the finish of the day across all your business’ accounts (money steadiness).
Dividing the money steadiness by the money outflow lets you see how many money buffer days you have accessible. Chase provides that every business requires a totally different quantity of buffer days, while others, like the non-profit SCORE — which mentors and educates entrepreneurs — advises saving three to six months of working prices in an emergency fund by banking 10% of your month-to-month income.
2. Get insured
It’s just a facet hustle, proper? Why does it need insurance coverage?
While some may not, facet hustles that operate out of your own home — or other people’s houses — or merely require you to be on the transfer, could benefit from business insurance coverage. Damages or thefts that happen to companies that work out of houses aren’t essentially lined by house owner’s insurance coverage, while common auto insurance coverage may not cowl car accidents associated to your facet gig.
As such, it could be price exploring how insurance coverage protection could probably save you lots of or hundreds in losses if your facet hustle goes sideways.
3. Keep an eye out for purple flags
Sometimes the best safety is catching an difficulty before it becomes a main downside. By often monitoring gross sales, income, orders and web metrics, among other business stats, you may spot a vulnerability before it blows up into a much greater difficulty, permitting you to deal with it early and work toward stopping it down the line.
Simple methods like these could help keep your facet gig afloat in occasions of financial turbulence — permitting you to have your cinnamon roll and eat it too.
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