Sarah Imberman

Owner & Operator
S. Levy Foods

Chicago native Sarah Imberman developed a passion for cooking, eating and feeding people early. In 2004, her passion became her profession when she launched Sarah’s Pastries & Candies, making chocolate candies out of her mother’s kitchen. 

In 2005 Sarah opened her first retail store in Chicago and soon expanded her offerings to include pastries, specialty and wedding cakes, chocolate gift baskets and more. She later moved her shop to a more prominent location nearby and opened a second store inside Macy’s on State Street in 2007.

Sarah showcases many of her bakery’s popular recipes in her cookbook Sweetness: Delicious Baked Treats for Every Occasion (Surrey Books) – the second edition was released in the summer of 2016. In 2011, she competed in Food Network Challenge and won the show’s $10,000 prize for her 3-feet tall moving dinosaur-shaped cake (you can watch it here).

Sarah expanded her business beyond pastry and entered the airport food concession space in 2011. Sarah’s passion for food thrives as she helps to bring “real food” that reflects the local market to airports. Sarah is a proud joint-venture partner of SSP America and has since grown to operate restaurants in John F. Kennedy, San Diego International Airport, Sacramento, Phoenix Sky Harbor, Chicago Midway and San Francisco International Airport. Sarah brought back her Sarah’s Candies brand in 2016 by partnering with Hudson Group to open Sarah’s Candies at O’Hare International Airport – Terminal 2 and Chicago Midway Airport – Terminal B. We are now “doing business as” Sarah’s Foods for brand consistency.

Sarah was featured in the New York Times Entrepreneurship section in March 2017. Sarah’s Pastries & Candies was named one of the nation’s Top Ten Candy Stores by USA Today and was the only Chicago bakery to be featured in BRIDES magazine’s Most Beautiful Wedding Cakes issue. Sarah has also been featured on numerous television shows, including ABC7’s Windy City Live and 190 North, WGN’s Lunch Break, NBC5’s News Today and CBS2’s Eye On Chicago, as well as in print publications such as Better Homes and Gardens, Elegant Bride, Complete Woman Magazine, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Magazine and Time Out Chicago, among others.

Sarah is the 2019 winner of SSP America’s “JV Partner Hall of Fame” award and was a guest on episode 70 of the Airport Experience News podcast. Sarah was nominated for the Jean Banchet Award for Celebrity Pastry Chef and was honored with the YWCA Promise Award in 2007. She has trained at several of the country’s top restaurants and bakeries, including Spago Beverly Hills, where she apprenticed under the James Beard award-winning pastry chef Sherry Yard and Bittersweet Bakery in Chicago. Sarah is a graduate of Northwestern University and the French Pastry School of Chicago.