MY STORY
I've started over more than once. I've learned something every time.
I'm Rita Magalde.
And if there is one thing my life has taught me, it's that starting over doesn't always look like starting from scratch.
Sometimes it looks like realizing the life you worked very hard to build may not be the life you want to keep living exactly as it is.
I've been an entrepreneur for nearly three decades. I've built businesses, sold a business, started another one from my kitchen and spent years learning what it takes to keep going when things don't go according to plan.
I've also raised two children, been a single mother for more than two decades, gone through divorce, started over financially, written a book, lived in another country, traveled the world and learned that being capable of carrying a lot doesn't necessarily mean you should keep carrying all of it.
At 53, I'm not starting over because I think my old life was a mistake.
I'm asking whether the life I built still fits the woman I am now.
And that may be the biggest reinvention of all.
BEFORE THE BAKLAVA
I was building things long before I built a bakery.
Entrepreneurship has been part of my adult life for nearly three decades.
Before Sheer Ambrosia, I owned a mortgage brokerage. Then I co-founded Amigo Travel in 1999 and spent nearly a decade building it.
Travel became a significant part of my life. I lived in Spain. I saw parts of the world that made my life feel bigger. I learned what it meant to build something, serve customers, make payroll, solve problems and wake up the next morning knowing the responsibility ultimately stopped with me.
In 2008, I sold my half of the travel agency.
A few months later, I began again.
This time, with a pan of baklava.
THEN CAME THE BAKLAVA
What started in my kitchen became Sheer Ambrosia Bakery.
I didn't begin Sheer Ambrosia with some grand plan to build a nationally recognized bakery.
I began with something I knew how to make and loved sharing with people.
Baklava.
Over time, that became Sheer Ambrosia Bakery, my artisan bakery built around 45 layers of hand-buttered phyllo and flavors influenced by the Greek tradition that taught me the pastry and the Southern flavors that are part of my own story.
For years, I built the business without a storefront. Then, in January 2024, Sheer Ambrosia opened its commercial bakery in Salt Lake City.
That little business has taken me places I could never have mapped out when I started it.
It has brought awards, media attention, remarkable customers and opportunities I'm deeply grateful for.
It has also demanded more from me than almost anything I have ever built.
There have been wonderful years and frightening ones. Times when I felt incredibly proud of what I had created and times when I wondered how much longer I could carry it.
Both things are true.
I love what I built.
And building it changed me.
ALONG THE WAY
I've had the privilege of doing some pretty remarkable things.
I don't measure my life by awards or headlines. But I am proud of the work I've done and grateful for the people and organizations that have recognized it along the way.
Over nearly three decades of entrepreneurship, I've built businesses across different industries, graduated from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program and grown Sheer Ambrosia from a home-based business into a commercial artisan bakery.
Sheer Ambrosia was named Best Dessert by Best of SLC in 2026, recognized as the inaugural 2024 Business of the Year by the Utah Black Chamber of Commerce, and honored with the 2026 Afro Utah Best Afro Business Award.
I've been recognized among 50 Women to KNOW in Utah, appeared on the cover of Utah Business Magazine's 2024 Gift Edition, and my story and Sheer Ambrosia have been featured 13 times on Marketplace, produced by American Public Media.
I'm also the author of From Mrs. to Ms.: How to Pull Your Life Together When Your Marriage Falls Apart. My second book, It’s Never Too Late to Write Your Next Story, arrives in November 2026.
I'm proud of what I've accomplished.
I'm also curious about what I haven't done yet.
BEST AFRO BUSINESS
Afro Utah Awards 2026
BEST DESSERT
Best of SLC 2026
BUSINESS OF THE YEAR
Utah Black Chamber
50 WOMEN TO KNOW
Utah 2026
13 FEATURES
Marketplace
THE LIFE BEHIND THE BUSINESS
There was always a whole life happening behind the work.
Business is easy to summarize in a biography.
Life isn't.
While I was building businesses, I was also raising Sofia and Leo.
I became a single mother when my children were very young, and for more than two decades, much of my life was organized around a simple reality: people were depending on me.
So I became very good at doing what needed to be done.
Working.
Providing.
Solving the problem.
Making the decision.
Finding the money.
Keeping things moving.
Beginning again when I had to.
I'm proud of that woman.
I don't look backward at her and wish she had been someone else. She got me here.
But eventually, I started wondering whether being strong had quietly become the same thing as being responsible for everything.
And whether I wanted to spend the rest of my life that way.
THEN I STARTED ASKING DIFFERENT QUESTIONS
What if success could mean something different now?
For a long time, success was easy for me to measure.
Build the business.
Make the money.
Take care of the children.
Pay the bills.
Keep going.
Then I started asking questions that didn't fit neatly onto a business plan.
How do I want my life to feel?
Do I want to work this much forever?
What would happen if I took my health as seriously as I take my responsibilities?
What happened to the woman who loved traveling?
What else do I want to learn?
Where do I still want to go?
What kind of home do I want to wake up in?
What would I do simply because it delighted me?
I want to dance more tango.
I want to learn another language.
I want to go to Greece.
I want to travel again.
I want to take care of my body.
I want financial security without having to sacrifice my entire life to achieve it.
I want time with my children and the people I love.
I want beautiful quilts and slow mornings and a kitchen that feels like mine.
And yes, I still want to make money.
I still want to build things.
I still have big dreams.
I just don't want achievement to be the only evidence that I lived a successful life.
REINVENTING RITA
I’ve learned some things worth sharing.
At 53, I know more than I used to.
Thank God. 😂
Some of what I know came from getting things right. A whole lot of it came from getting things spectacularly wrong.
Either way, I’ve been paying attention.
And that’s what I want to share here.
The lessons that took me years to learn. The things I wish someone had told me sooner. The ideas that have changed my mind. The things I’ve tried that actually worked. The things that absolutely did not. The products I genuinely love. The places I want to go. The questions worth asking. And the stories that taught me something I didn’t understand when I was living them.
We’ll talk about work and money. Home and health. Relationships. Getting older. Trying new things. Taking care of yourself. Having fun. Making mistakes. And making room in your life for things that matter to you.
I’m not interested in telling you how to live your life.
But if something I’ve learned can save you a little time, help you see something differently, introduce you to something wonderful, make you laugh, or remind you that there are still plenty of things worth looking forward to, then I want to pass it along.
That’s what you’ll find here.
Real life. Useful things. Good stories. And a woman who has been around long enough to have something to say.
And if every now and then you find yourself thinking:
Well, damn. I needed that.
Then Reinventing Rita is doing exactly what I hoped it would do.
WHERE I AM NOW
I'm still ambitious. I just want more from life than achievement.
I still want to build things.
I still want to make money. I still want to create. I still want to surprise myself with what I can accomplish.
But I also want room in my life.
Room to rest.
Room to travel.
Room to dance.
Room to sit at the table with people I love without mentally running through tomorrow's to-do list.
Room to buy the damn quilt because I love it.
Room to change my mind.
Room to discover something new.
Room to be more than useful.
I don't need to know exactly what the next chapter looks like.
And for perhaps the first time in my life, I'm comfortable with that.
It's never too late to write your next story.
Rita
