Alexandria Diggs walked away from the whiteboard and into a cloud of cinnamon sugar, turning her side hustle Lou's Buns into a full-fledged family business with real estate in L'Enfant Plaza and a slot lined up at Nationals Park this season. What began as late-night baking sessions for neighbors and pop-up markets has grown into a steady retail operation, with inventive flavors ranging from sweet potato to confetti-style "bunfetti" and limited-time seasonal specials. Diggs opened the storefront in late October 2025, a move she says officially shifted the project from side gig to full-time work for her and her siblings.
Diggs told WJLA she had been teaching English in Japan before the COVID shutdown sent her back to D.C., where she split her days between the classroom and overnight baking shifts in shared commercial kitchens. Early sales, delivered by relatives to barbershops and small neighborhood businesses, convinced her the buns had enough traction to justify going all in on the bakery. The WJLA profile also features photos and background on the family crew now running the counter.
Lou's Buns' own site lays out the growing operation, from the core menu to online ordering and catering trays that helped the brand jump from pop-ups to regular pickup and delivery. The bakery promotes year-round staples like a sweet-potato bun, a classic red-velvet bun and the celebratory "bunfetti," plus a rotating cast of seasonal specials featured on its shop page. The site also lists Tastemakers in Northeast D.C. as a production hub and pickup spot for trays and wholesale orders.
From Pop-ups To A Permanent Counter
Before securing a permanent home, Lou's Buns built its fan base one market table at a time, leaning on food events and rotating pop-ups to test flavors and portion sizes in real time. Local food-hall listings, including Western Market's vendor roster, show Lou's Buns among the rotating stalls and pop-up concepts, underscoring the bakery's early presence on the market circuit. Those trial runs gave the family both the volume and the data they needed to justify investing in a fixed counter at L'Enfant Plaza.
Nationals Park Deal And Price Squeeze
As reported by WJLA, Lou's Buns is set to partner with Nationals Park as a vendor ahead of the 2026 baseball season, a stadium slot that should boost the bakery's visibility with both weekday commuters and weekend crowds. WJLA also notes the bakery has temporarily pulled its red-velvet bun from the lineup, citing rising chocolate costs that are squeezing margins for smaller operations. Broader industry coverage has documented sharp increases in cocoa and chocolate prices in recent years, prompting price shifts across the confectionery world.
Customers can order individual buns or full trays online and pick them up at the shop, with Lou's Buns' ordering page outlining pickup, delivery and catering options for everything from office spreads to larger events. With a small family team behind the counter and a stadium partnership on deck, Diggs says the focus is staying on fresh buns, careful growth and using market pop-ups as a low-risk test kitchen for new flavors before they make the permanent storefront menu.
