Sweet strategy: Peipei builds a cross-cultural bakery in Waltham

When she arrived in the United States nearly two years ago, Pei Shengwei, or Peipei, recalled looking everywhere in the Boston area for a suitable bakery location. She eventually settled on a space in Waltham, taking over the mochi doughnut store Mister Monut at 873 Main St. 

While Peipei’s Bakery is her first U.S.-based business, Peipei brings more than 10 years of experience operating two bakeries in central China. The story of Peipei’s success in Waltham is one of navigating unfamiliar systems, becoming attuned to community preferences and leveraging savvy 21st-century marketing skills.

Peipei’s businesses started as a home-baking hobby in her senior year of college, but they quickly expanded to become a thriving delivery operation. In her third year of operations, she opened her first bakery location in central China. 

She left that behind, though, in 2024 when she moved to Massachusetts to join her husband, Jackie, who had left a year earlier to pursue a master’s degree at Northeastern University. Despite the unfamiliarity of a new country, Peipei knew she wanted to continue being a bakery owner.

Starting a business here in the United States had its challenges, she said.

“We don’t have a lot of friends here who are business owners, so we had to figure all that out for ourselves,” Peipei recalled, noting that former Mister Monut owner Tao Hsu helped her navigate the process.

One benefit of taking over Mister Monut was it eliminated the need for space renovations.

Adapting to customers

While Peipei has kept the Mister Monut moniker and its mochi donut offerings, she has also expanded the menu significantly to meet diverse tastes and consumer demands. 

Peipei’s bakery specializes in low-sugar, Asian-inspired items. Its flagship products include mochi pudding — glutinous rice balls filled with flavored pudding — as well as Mandarin pretzels, flavored takes on a traditional German soft pretzel.

Peipei said it was critical to understand the palate of the local community to develop products that resonated with them. For instance, she noted that Waltham’s Hispanic community has embraced the spicy chicken and corn Mandarin pretzels because of their similarity to flavors and ingredients used in Hispanic cuisine.

Peipei also learned that her American customers have a much bigger sweet tooth than their Chinese counterparts.

Peipei is strategic about how she engages with different customer bases. She relies on usual channels such as a website and Instagram to reach local customers, while targeting Chinese consumers — particularly international students — with Chinese media platforms such as RedNote and WeChat.

As the business grows, Peipei is looking to expand upstream operations. She hopes to obtain a larger space to produce at scale and sell to local grocery stores, coffee shops and boba tea shops.

Amid the rigor of running a business, Peipei said she values rest and stress management. Her activity of choice? Exploring local grocery stores, which offers both a relaxing activity and the chance to understand local tastes and dream up new recipes.

But perhaps the biggest thing that keeps her going is customer satisfaction. Peipei noted that American customers are much more willing to engage with and compliment the food. “Customer satisfaction is our main source of recharge,” she said.