Army veteran and single mother Jasmine Bartley built Honey Bee Bakery in Chester around her son's needs. On Saturdays, customers pay what they can afford.
Every Saturday at Honey Bee Bakery in Chester, customers pay what they can. The owner, Jasmine Bartley, is a single mother and Army veteran who started baking at home in 2022 so she could work around her son’s needs, and opened the storefront at 17 W. Hundred Road in 2025.
She wrote to Midlothian Now to share the story behind the shop. “I’m not looking for advertising or a promotional feature for my bakery,” she said. “I’d simply like the opportunity to share the story behind it and hopefully connect with other women, mothers, caregivers, and survivors who might relate.”
A business built around a child
Bartley’s son has autism and ADHD. In a piece she wrote about the bakery, titled “More Than a Bakery,” she describes the school years that made a regular job hard to hold: “Frequent calls to pick him up, being sent home, behavioral struggles, and the need for additional support made maintaining traditional employment increasingly difficult. There were multiple crisis-related therapeutic home visits, difficult behavioral periods, and challenges that required more than what an ordinary work schedule could accommodate.”
“There were days when motherhood meant putting everything else on hold because her son needed her,” she wrote.
She did not want to choose between being there for him and earning a living. “Baking offered something traditional employment couldn’t: flexibility,” she wrote. “It allowed her to work around school schedules, appointments, difficult days, and the unpredictable realities of raising a child with additional needs.”
She is self-taught. She built a customer base from home, and in 2025 she took on the shop in Chester.
Military service and starting over
Her journey, she wrote, “has involved much more than entrepreneurship.” She has lived through domestic violence, financial uncertainty and the strains of military life, and has had to rebuild her independence.
“Domestic violence and family trauma don’t always look the way people expect,” she wrote. “Sometimes they happen quietly, behind closed doors, while the person experiencing them continues working, raising children, managing responsibilities, and trying to make everything appear normal.”
“For Jasmine, rebuilding meant finding her independence, rediscovering herself, and creating a future where she and her son could move forward,” the piece says. “Her background in the military helped shape her discipline and work ethic, while motherhood gave her another reason to keep going.”
Why Saturdays are pay what you can
Baking is not her only calling. Bartley has a background in substance use disorder counseling and an interest in social work, mental health and advocacy, and that shapes how the shop runs.
“Whether someone is navigating addiction, domestic violence, financial hardship, mental health struggles, parenting challenges, or simply trying to make it through another difficult week, Jasmine believes compassion should never be conditional,” she wrote.
On Saturdays, customers come in and pay what they are able to. Everything the bakery has left on the shelves that day is part of it, she said.
“It isn’t about a marketing campaign or a sales promotion,” she wrote. “It’s about accessibility, dignity, and community. It’s about creating a space where someone doesn’t have to explain their financial situation or feel embarrassed about what they can afford.”
“For Jasmine, this initiative is personal. She knows what it feels like to have to make difficult choices, and she wants her business to be a place where people feel welcomed rather than judged.”
The bakery has also taken part in charity events, partnered with other local businesses and supported community organizations, she said.
Still figuring it out
Running a shop while raising a child and rebuilding a life brings “financial pressures, long hours, difficult decisions, and days when the weight of everything feels overwhelming,” she wrote. “People often see the finished cakes, community recognition, awards, and business milestones. They don’t always see the person behind them.”
She is not presenting it as a finished success story. “Jasmine isn’t sharing her story because she has everything figured out,” she wrote. “In fact, she is still figuring things out. Her journey is ongoing, and she is learning that rebuilding doesn’t happen overnight.”
She hopes other women, mothers, veterans, caregivers and survivors read it and see that their circumstances do not have to decide their future. “Sometimes the path forward looks different than expected,” she wrote. “Sometimes it means creating your own opportunities because the ones available to you simply don’t fit the life you’re living.”
“A business can be more than a source of income,” she wrote. “It can be a reflection of someone’s values, a way to reconnect with a community, and an opportunity to give others something they may desperately need: a little kindness without judgment.”
Hours and address
Honey Bee Bakery is at 17 W. Hundred Road, Chester. Pay What You Can runs during regular Saturday hours.
- Wednesday and Thursday: noon to 6 p.m.
- Friday: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Saturday: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Pay What You Can)
The bakery’s website lists its cakes, cookies and brownies, including gluten-free and vegan options, and it is on Instagram as @hbb.rva.
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