NEW ALBANY — When Cake Ladies Dream Shoppe was damaged by fire earlier this year, the siblings who owned the New Albany store weren’t sure about its future.
But as a sign on the front of their new location states, the family business has “risen from the ashes” like a phoenix.
Cake Ladies Dream Shoppe will reopen Saturday at its new location at 421 W. Main St. in New Albany. The grand reopening will take place from noon to 4 p.m.
The shop sells cake, candy and cookie making supplies, as well as party supplies.
It offers products ranging from cake decorations to personalized edible images.
Donna Damron, who owns the business with her four siblings, said the reopening will continue her parents’ legacy.
She is “looking forward to getting back to work.”
“We knew what an impact this city had on us, but I don’t think we realized the impact we had on this city and the surrounding businesses,” Damron said.
“We’ve had so much support from local businesses, customers, people who have now read the story and are saying, ‘This small business survived all of this.’”
Damron’s mother, Mary Franzell, started the business 54 years ago.
Co-owners of Cake Ladies Dream Shoppe Marilee Greene and Donna Damron stand behind the counter of their new boutique with Damron’s granddaughter, Rylee Damron. The boutique celebrates its grand reopening Saturday.
It all started when she learned how to decorate her eldest daughter’s wedding cake.
Mary began entering cakes in the non-professional division of the Kentucky State Fair, and after winning several blue ribbons, she was told to enter the professional division.
“She didn’t think she was a professional,” Damron said. “She was really, really, really good.”
Mary began teaching women in her neighborhood how to decorate cakes before teaching professional students in Louisville.
She realized her dream of opening a business, and the store opened in 1970. When Damron’s father, Danny Franzell, retired, he joined his wife in running the store.
Mary and Danny passed away in 2011 and their children had to choose whether or not to continue the business. The siblings decided to continue the family legacy.
“That’s what they worked so hard for their whole lives,” Damron said.
The store has been set up in several locations, including the Franzell home and a site that currently houses Big O Tires on State Street in New Albany.
For 35 years, the store was located at 1223 State St. In January, a fire broke out in the two-story building that housed the business.
The fire was contained to the upstairs apartment, but the store suffered significant water and smoke damage.
“We had to choose whether or not to try to resurrect the company,” Damron said.
Despite the challenges of starting over, the pieces of the puzzle finally began to fall into place.
The family signed the lease on the Main Street building on June 1. They adopted the phoenix as their new logo to represent the company’s resurrection.
Cake Ladies Dream Shoppe caters to “the needs of the homemaker to the professional,” Damron said.
“We supply everything from beginner bakers to professionals and chefs,” she said.
“The store aims to keep prices affordable,” she said.
“We want professionals to make money and amateurs to be able to be creative and do things,” Damron said.
Her mother taught cake decorating in the shop, while her father focused on candy making.
The pandemic kept the business from offering classes for a while, but it reintroduced candy-making classes last November at the old location.
In the new shop, they hope to continue offering candy-making classes and eventually bring back the more intensive cake decorating classes, Damron said.
Her sister, Marilee Greene, is one of the store’s co-owners. She lives in Florida but has been in the area for more than a month to help reopen the store.
She was moved to see the outpouring of support from the community.
“The community really needed this,” Greene said. “Home bakers really needed this.”
The store has loyal customers who are excited to see the store continue in business, Damron said.
“Our customers are more friends than business customers,” she said.
Damron said it would have been easier to close the business, but there were just “lots and lots and lots of signs” that they had to keep going.
“I think we often take small businesses and what they offer for granted, but when that’s no longer the case, it just makes us realise how important it is to support small businesses,” she said.
The goal is to continue the business “for many generations to come,” Damron said.
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