About Me

Hello! I am Ayla Dingman, an 18 year old teen from Santa Cruz. I hope to one day open a brick and mortar cafe but for now I enjoy baking for other Santa Cruz locals through my home business. I strive to limit the amount of plastic waste used in my packaging in order to have less of a waste footprint. I also pride myself on offering quality products by using organic ingredients in my baking. While the initial launch of Cave Bear Cafe was crafted in a mere three days it has evolved and become more streamlined as I have gained experience through serving my customers. I hope you will stick around to help and watch as I grow.

Thank you to my whole family who has supported me by supplying baking tools, cleaning up after my early baking disasters, as well as listening to and encouraging me throughout the process of starting and expanding my business. I would like to give a special shoutout to my nana who has helped spark my passion of baking from a very young age. I'm even honored to be able to share her prized sour cream coffee cake with all of you. Thank you again, I couldn't have done this without seeing that people believed in me and enjoyed what I make.

The name Cave Bear Cafe was inspired from my mom's favorite childhood book that she got my name from, Clan of the Cave Bear. A couple years ago when I was visiting my nana and poppi, my nana and I created this fake restaurant to serve dinner for my poppi. During the conversations about what to name this restaurant we ended up pitching Cave Bear Cafe as an option for the dessert portion. So when I decided to pursue selling my baked goods I remembered this conversation and thought it worked wonderfully.