JJ’s Treats

In a corner of northwest Huntsville, JJ’s Treats has built a small but devoted following by combining two things that do not usually share a counter: scratch-baked desserts and Hawaiian shaved ice. The shop sits at 432 Bass Circle NW and is run by Janis Hatcher, who operates the business as a veteran, minority, and woman-owned small business, a combination that shapes both how the shop runs and the community ties it has built around Huntsville.

The bakery side of JJ’s Treats covers scratch-made cakes, pies, cookies, and puddings, all baked fresh on site rather than shipped in or assembled from mixes. The shop also keeps sugar-free options available for customers managing diabetes or watching their sugar intake, a detail that comes up often in conversations with regulars who appreciate having a dessert option that does not require them to skip the treat case entirely. Red velvet items in particular have built a reputation among customers, showing up frequently in recommendations from people who have made repeat trips to the shop.

What sets JJ’s Treats apart from a typical neighborhood bakery is its shaved ice program. The shop offers more than one hundred varieties of Hawaiian shaved ice sno cones, a scale that puts it closer to a dedicated shaved ice stand than a side offering tacked onto a bakery menu. Alongside the sno cones, the shop serves fresh ground espresso and specialty coffee, hot chocolate, and bottled water, giving customers a reason to stop in regardless of the season, whether they want something cold on a hot Alabama afternoon or something warm during the cooler months.

JJ’s Treats also offers catering for custom desserts and event hosting, and the shop rents out its commercial kitchen facility to community members working on food preservation projects like canning and jelly-making, a service that goes beyond what most retail bakeries offer. That willingness to open the kitchen to the wider community reflects the shop’s broader role in its northwest Huntsville neighborhood, functioning as more than just a place to buy a slice of pie.

The shop keeps a fairly tight schedule, open Tuesday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., closed Sunday and Monday. Visitors with a specific cake or pie in mind are better off calling ahead, since scratch baking on a small scale means the case can run through popular items before closing time. The shop can be reached at 256-808-6039 for questions, custom orders, or catering inquiries.

For a business that blends a full scratch bakery with an extensive shaved ice menu, JJ’s Treats has carved out a specific niche in Huntsville’s dessert scene. It is not simply a bakery and it is not simply a sno cone stand, but a combination of both, run by a veteran and minority-owned small business that has built its name on fresh-baked goods and a shaved ice selection large enough to keep customers coming back to try flavors they have not gotten to yet.

The commercial kitchen rental service is worth calling out on its own, since it gives home cooks and small food entrepreneurs in the area a licensed space to work on canning, preserving, and jelly-making projects that would otherwise require them to find commercial kitchen access elsewhere. That kind of resource-sharing is not something most dessert shops offer, and it reflects owner Janis Hatcher’s broader approach to running the business as something that supports the surrounding community rather than existing purely as a storefront. Whether a visitor is stopping in for a quick sno cone on a hot afternoon, ordering a custom cake for a birthday, or inquiring about kitchen space for a small canning project, JJ’s Treats has built a business model wider than its modest storefront on Bass Circle might suggest.