Makkee Dessert is serving customers at 10797 Main Street in Downtown Bellevue, the chain's first location in Washington state.

The Chinese dessert shop launched a soft opening on the retail level of the Surrey on Main apartments, in the storefront where Sugar n Flakes Bakery & Cafe had closed. The preview runs through Thursday, Sept. 10, with hours from noon to 4 p.m., according to Downtown Bellevue.

No grand opening date or regular hours have been announced.

What Makkee serves

Makkee specializes in Asian-style dessert soups and traditional sweets: bowls of jellies, beans, fruit and other toppings covered in milk. The chain markets its desserts as not overly sweet.

Three signature items anchor the menu. The Makkee Deluxe features grass jelly, taro and sweet potato balls, red beans, peach gum and lotus seeds in fresh or oat milk. The Tapioca Deluxe pairs chewy tapioca pearls with peach gum, red beans, taro balls and lotus seeds. The Mango Pomelo Sago is a mango sweet soup made with pomelo and sago.

A chain with 1,000 stores in China

Makkee Dessert is a rebranded version of Mai Ji Milk, a dessert company operating roughly a thousand stores in China. It has six U.S. locations. Shops are in Rowland Heights, San Gabriel, downtown Los Angeles, Irvine and Mountain View in California, plus Flushing in New York. Two more are planned for San Jose and Brooklyn.

The Mountain View location opened in early July and drew long lines, Palo Alto Online reported.

Sugar n Flakes' short run on Main Street

Sugar n Flakes, the custom-cake bakery founded by Pooja Agarwal, had occupied the Main Street space since July 2024. Agarwal moved the business there from a smaller storefront along Bellevue Way Northeast at Park Row, in a strip mall that Bosa Development bought in 2019 for $36 million and later cleared for a 22-story residential tower.

The Main Street move gave Sugar n Flakes indoor seating for the first time and room for a larger menu that added sandwiches and coffee alongside its cakes, cupcakes, pastries and cookies. In an August 2024 profile, Agarwal described her approach to the bakery's signature custom cakes: "Whether a cake is for sixty dollars or for six hundred dollars, my effort for each is the same."

Agarwal has not commented publicly on the closure. Makkee's soft-opening hours run noon to 4 p.m. daily through Sept. 10.