Last summer, just after giving birth to her first child, Kelsey Shepard expanded her cupcake empire to open her fourth Kelsey Elizabeth Cakes shop in Chagrin Falls. Unfortunately, Shepard announced yesterday on Instagram that she’d be closing her only East Side shop. This Sunday, Nov. 12, is its final day.
“Phew,” she wrote. “What a whirlwind of a shop. I signed the lease a couple weeks after giving birth to Posy, because I couldn’t turn down that prime location, and wondered how we were going to make it all work.”
In the post, the owner explains how the shop’s “Sweet Petites" approach, which focused on smaller and limited offerings like cupcakes, fudge and macarons rather than custom cakes and larger orders, never took off. Customers in Chagrin Falls wanted those cakes, but the lack of a kitchen at the Main Street location prevented her from fulfilling that need.
As anyone who’s been a new parent can understand, Shepard was always open about running leaner and balancing her business with her family life. She hoped this limited approach would be “much more manageable with the new baby.”
“We wanted to test out the idea, but we’ve heard you loud and clear, you want cakes, and sadly it’s just not something we can offer there,” she says. “With Chagrin Falls being 45 minutes away from me, and nearly an hour from my mom, it’s been a bigger undertaking than we planned.”
Still, Shepard says the last few weekends have been some of the shop’s busiest. Shepard hinted at future plans for Kelsey Elizabeth Cakes once things die down for the new mom. It’s unclear whether or not that would involve another East Side spot. The business has storefronts in Rocky River, Avon and Avon Lake.
Shepard declined to comment for this story. Shepard was one of our Most Interesting People in 2022 and a Best of Cleveland honoree in 2018.
“This was an incredibly difficult decision to make,” says Shepard. “Heck, we’ve had some of our busiest days the last few Saturdays, and I know you guys would keep us wonderfully busy throughout the holidays, but I’m a strong proponent of protecting your energy, so I gotta walk the walk on this one.”
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