How Three Bites Bakery Became a Columbus Pastry Destination

Isabella Bonello started her Three Bites Bakery on the side while working full-time as a baker for L Brands in Columbus. When she lost her job in 2020, she followed her own interests and began building her fledgling business. 

“It started to grow as a way for me to fill time,” she says. “I was just bored and needed something to do. So, I’d make little assortment boxes and donate a portion of the sales to any cause that was important to me.” 

She started popping up at local markets and selling baked goods out of her home before opening a storefront in Columbus’ King-Lincoln Bronzeville neighborhood in 2022. Bonello was going to call her venture Sweet Goblin, but friends suggested she choose another name. 

“When I go to Italy, where my dad’s from, I love that you can get a little pastry, something small that’s like two or three bites,” Bonello says. “And then my friend Casey was like, ‘Why don’t you just call it Three Bites?’ And that was it.”

“It started to grow as a way for me to fill time,” Isabella Bonello says. “I was just bored and needed something to do. So, I’d make little assortment boxes and donate a portion of the sales to any cause that was important to me.” (photo by Brian Kaiser)

To craft her lineup of pastries, Bonello draws on her father’s Italian heritage and her mother’s Filipino heritage. She says her most popular item is the bombolone, a sugar-frosted Italian doughnut filled with vanilla pastry cream. The baklava morning bun (another favorite) is wrapped around a mixture of pistachio, walnut and cinnamon before it’s dunked in honey syrup. Similar pastries, all artfully prepared, feel like a trip around the globe, from Chinese pineapple buns to Filipino pandesal, a brioche bun made with ube and filled with cheese. 

Bonello adds that she loves the savory selections, which include flaky mushroom, artichoke and  leek croissants, and mini pizzas called pizzettes.

In 2024, Bonello moved Three Bites Bakery to a prominent corner in downtown Columbus, joining forces with Little Cat Boba, a coffee and boba tea shop, to open a storefront at Broad and High streets. While Bonello speaks highly of her former neighborhood, she says it wasn’t without its challenges. 

“We survived for two and a half years in a place with almost no foot traffic,” she says. “So, I feel like that’s a testament to what we’ve been able to do and what we’ve been able to slowly build.”

12 E. Broad St., Columbus 43215, 614/372-5930, threebitesbakery.com

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