Don’t read the name “La Paix Bakery” and mistake it for another French café. The pastry shop in Miramar, Florida has celebrated Haitian food and culture with breads, baked goodies and a welcoming spirit for more than 17 years.
La Paix, which means “the peace,” was founded by Lucien Nozile, Yolande Derosier and Nadeige Sterlin. Nozile, who had an impressive career in the baking industry since the 1980s, met his spouse Yolande Derosier in a bakery. They were both instrumental in developing Haitian baking and patisserie arts in South Florida, sharing recipes and mentorship across the state. Since Nozile’s passing in 2017, Derosier and her two daughters, Sterlin and Natasha Janvier, co-lead the overall operations at the bakery.
Photo: David I. Muir
To the matriarchy now at the helm of the business, La Paix Bakery is a labor of love. The menu includes fresh hard dough Haitian bread and oven-baked pastries, made from scratch in-house daily, to sweets, juices, soups and even their popular Haitian-style breakfast spaghetti. You also can find many of their goods on the shelves of local supermarkets including Presidente, Bravo and Key Food.
The bakery location is a one-stop shop for Haitian delights that bring a sense of home to Caribbean people living abroad, and it shares those traditions with the broader community. Sterlin recalled one customer saying, “Now I have a place I can be proud of and bring my friends or people from other cultures to experience Haiti.”
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Once, a customer in Arizona pleaded for baked goods to remind her husband of his homeland on his birthday. Despite not having an out-of-state shipping option, La Paix Bakery made it happen. “For us it wasn’t about making the sale,” Sterlin said. “It was about making that moment for them.”
The trio carries on the legacy Nozile began with a goal of taking the business to new heights. Recently, La Paix Bakery’s rebrand and acceleration garnered the attention of Miramar Mayor Wayne Messam, who recognized La Paix Bakery for overall business success during Haitian Heritage Month. After more than doubling their revenue in 2021, Sterlin graciously boasted about the community who got them to this point along with support from Office Depot’s Elevate Together grant, the Venture Mentoring Team and the Urban League of Broward County, who helped revamp foundational elements of the business.
With a second location opening up in Dade County in 2023, the South Florida Haitian bakery is looking forward to expanding their hot meal selection and providing both indoor and outdoor seating. Even as La Paix Bakery grows, rest assured that celebrating Haitian culture remains at the forefront of everything they do.
