If you’re looking to wet your whistle late at night in
Germantown and Schnitzelburg, there are a plethora of options, but if your sweet
tooth beckons, there aren’t too many places to quell the craving. That is,
until JB Cakes opened up shop in 2015 at 1101 Goss Avenue.
The bakery opens early, at 7 am (8 am on Sundays), just as
you would expect. Yet, unlike other confectionary establishments, JB Cakes is
open well into the evening, serving cupcakes to the masses until 8 pm on
Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 pm on Thursday, and 11 pm on Friday and Saturday. Essentially
serving cupcakes any time that craving hits you, day or night.
“JB Cakes is a place you can stop by
for a bite in the morning, order cupcakes for a party or dinner, even order a
cake for a birthday,” says owner Jared Langdon. “At the same time, we are a
great option for dessert, somewhere to satisfy your sweet tooth between dinner
and drinks. We do see quite a bit of business later in the evening, which is
great!”
Their long hours aren’t the only thing that makes them
unique. When you enter the small shop, you’ll notice all the cupcakes are
naked, absent of icing. This isn’t due to a new food movement or lazy bakers,
instead, customers are invited to craft their own cupcake creation. You simply
pick out one of the cupcake flavors in the cabinet and choose from about 10 icing
options. You can even add toppings to make a truly decadent treat. Full-size
cupcakes cost about $2 and minis run about 80 cents each.
The fun flavor options are virtually endless: ginger spice
with caramel cream cheese frosting and graham cracker crumbles, strawberry cake
and banana cream cheese, chocolate and coffee butter cream with chocolate
drizzle, red velvet with white chocolate cream cheese and crushed peppermint
sprinkles. If you prefer the comfort of a classic yellow cake with chocolate
frosting, they have that too. (Click here for a list of their flavors.)
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| Various cupcakes on display. |
JB Cakes bakes about 600 to 800 cupcakes every week. Along
with cupcakes, they also bake cookies and special order cakes. You can also
find JB Cakes for sale at the nearby Lydia House.
Since settling down in Germantown, JB Cakes has loved the
neighborhood and having the opportunity to grow along with it (three of the
four owners live in Germantown). “So
much is happening on Goss, we are very excited to see what the street will look
like in the next few years,” said Langdon. They are excited for more commerce
to come to the area, but they hope the neighborhood’s charm remains intact as
more development moves in.
JB Cakes occupies a building that has a long, interesting history on Goss Avenue – a history that sheds some
light on how our streets today were formed.
The building at 1101 Goss Avenue was built in 1893 by
Frederick C. "Fred" Heck. Fred was born in Germany and
immigrated to the US in 1878. He married Pauline Marie Schoening and they had 7
children. In 1892, Fred purchased 60 feet of property on the North side of
Goss Avenue from Ferdinand Scharre, Jr. for $1,000. Fred was a
butcher by trade and constructed the butcher shop/grocery store just one door
down from John Taphorn's new saloon (currently Four Pegs), which was built in
1892. An empty space between the two businesses held a wood frame stable
until 1900, when Fred sold the small lot to the city in order to connect Spratt
Street to Goss Avenue. Fred, his wife, and children ran the grocery
business at the location from 1893 to until 1923, when Fred sold the building to
Richard E. Fishback, a grocer. Fishback operated the business only a short
time before selling it to Piggly Wiggly in 1928. Piggly Wiggly remained at the
corner of Goss and Spratt until 1942. The building was rented or vacant
during the war years and was adopted as the home of the Southend Democrat Club
in 1949. The Democrat Club move to 907 Goss Avenue a few years later. The building bounced around owners, remaining a rental property,
yet without any commercial businesses truly taking hold of the space.
We look forward to JB Cakes
spreading their roots and becoming a part of our history! We hope they’ll be
open long enough to try every flavor combination and that will probably take a
very long time!
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