A nationally recognized baker who produces cakes for special occasions is closing her New Town store after a special occasion in her own family.
Cakealicious owner Alice Cooke announced she has closed up shop in New Town in order to spend more time with her family — in particular, her five-month-old granddaughter, Ava.
Cooke shared the news with her customers through a Facebook post and with signs taped to the shop’s doors. Cooke said her business will remain open and will operate out of a room in Shane’s Salon in Yorktown, by appointment only.
“It’s time for us to become more family-oriented,” Cooke said. “We’re still going strong and have been for 15 years. We needed to downsize.”
For four years, Cakealicious has been at the corner of Casey Boulevard and Discovery Park Boulevard in New Town, where Cooke baked and decorated cakes.
In addition, she sold coffee, tea, smoothies, cupcakes and other sweets, including homemade gelato.
Cooke’s baking skills got her on the Food Network’s show Cake Wars, and she and her daughter Ashley took home a $10,000 prize in 2016 after being named champion.
Some of her more memorable creations have been a Godzilla cake, a lighthouse cake, a chainsaw for a groom’s cake, a diver’s helmet for a retirement cake, and the stadium of Virginia Tech, also for a groom.
Cooke said the specialty cakes were what drove her business, and she and her daughter and head baker Ashley will continue to produce them. Granddaughter Ava is often with them in their new space as they bake, and Cooke said she is looking forward to baking a cake for Ava in August.
“We had a good four years in Williamsburg and it was a really good decision to go there, it was just time to go back to Yorktown to have more time in the day with our family,” Cooke said.
Between an hour-long commute, long hours in the store, and delivering her baked goods on weekends, Cooke said she simply was unable to spend as much time with her family as she would like.
Cooke said she began baking cakes in order to make creative treats for her children, and her talents blossomed into her own store and career.
As she scales back her business operations and leaves her store behind, she is seeing her career come full-circle.
“Now with the arrival of this grandbaby, I’m making cakes at home and able to spend time with the next generation,” she said.
WYDaily archives were used in this story.
