Stephen Montoya
Kids Kakes founder Deanna Robinson
If you’d asked Kids Kakes founder Deanna Robinson two years ago to bake you a cake, she probably would’ve rolled her eyes. But as it stands now, kupkakes and kakes in general are her livelihood.
Originally trained as a chef at the Art Institute in Dallas in 2007, Robinson says baking was the one skill she wasn’t really interested in. Instead, she used her culinary knowledge to compete as a chef in competitions. However, after hitting hard times during the pandemic, Robinson found herself in need of a business idea.
“I actually hated baking,” she says. “It would make me angry, but I ended up baking actually because of my son. He asked one day if he could sell cupcakes in the neighborhood? And I said, ‘what cupcakes?’ And he was like, ‘my cupcakes.’”
After tasting his attempt at this popular mini cake treat, Robinson says she jumped in to help him refine his recipe.
“He ate one of the cupcakes I made, and he goes, ‘oh my God, mommy, you should sell these’” she opined.
Obliging this request, Robinson split her four kids up into teams along with her roommate’s two children, with a plan to divide and conquer their immediate neighborhood.
“They went out into the neighborhood; two went to the left part and two went out to the right part and two stayed home with me to bake,” Robinson verified.
After going door-to-door, the kids came back with the orders and once they were filled, Robinson says they actually made a profit. This in turn sparked an idea that would eventually become a full-fledged business.
Now, with a business model in mind, Robinson says she worked seven days a week to get this kake concept off the ground. The name itself stems from her son’s idea to sell cupcakes door-to-door. Since he was a kid at the time, the name Kids Kakes seemed to fit. And just like any good business model this name and concept was put to a vote via the concepts’ partners, which are Robinson’s four kids.
“We have a committee model where everything has to be voted on,” she says. “The kids liked the Kids Kakes idea and then another one of my kids had an idea to replace all the c’s on the menu and logos with k’s.”
This too was a unanimous yes per the committee.
For several months, while she was doing her best to start this baking business from scratch, Robinson says she worked several jobs during the week so she could fill orders on the weekends out of her own kitchen.
Stephen Montoya
“Yeah, I was in a thousand square foot apartment with four kids, a dog, and my special needs brother,” she says with a smile.
Robinson worked hard to get things moving on her own business, so much so that she asked a restaurant manager at one of the two restaurants she was working at for advice and mentorship so she could try and get a leg up in her home business.
“She looks at me and says, ‘why would I do that? You are a complete waste of time and you will never be anything. You'll never really do anything.’ And she was like, ‘I'm not spending my time to help you.’ And I was like, ‘okay.’ And I just stood there for a minute and then I walked over to a manager and I said, ‘I'm going to go home now. That was the last day I worked for anybody.”
Now with a free schedule, Robinson began attending local food events and festivals to get the word out about her product. Soon she would find a place to run her business out of at the 206 Brewery and Food Hall located at 206 S Oak Street in Roanoke. Soon after opening this spot, Robinson says she had another opportunity to take on one of the adjacent food court spots when the previous tenant never showed back up.
So, right across from Kids Kakes is a small eatery titled The Foodery in honor of the KupKakery.
“I was trained as a chef, so this spot has me tapping into that knowledge, which I enjoy,” she says.
This means Robinson can satiate both sweet and savory cravings at the same time. Her Kids Kakes menu consists of cupcake classics like chokolate, skrawberry, karrot, and this writer’s personal fave, the Pineapple Upside Down, which includes a cherry countersunk into the bottom of the cake. In all, Kids Kakes have 12 mainstay flavors with a thirteenth thrown in every month that could be a new recipe or seasonal. Kids Kakes also does wedding cakes baked by Robinson and decorated by Kim Bradley.
There are also several vegan and gluten free options on the menu too.
On the savory side, The Foodery has menu items like the Daddy Mac, made with two burger patties, mac and cheese, and barbecue, smothered in jalapenos and onions. There’s even an Arugula Burger, and the Sloppy Mac, which is described like a chili mac but better.
For now, this quaint Roanoke food court seems to be the answer Robinson was looking for all along. She and her kids still work together trying to get the word out about their unique take on classic cuisine. This family affair seems to be blossoming given the diplomacy of the group as a whole.
“I told my friend that God took away all of my options and made it so that this is where I'm supposed to be,” Robinson says. “I felt at peace with that decision no matter how scared I was, no matter how much I wanted to say, ‘I can't do this, or I shouldn't do this,’ I was at peace. And looking back, if I went back, I would say, ‘trust your instincts.’ And my instincts were to just do it. So, I did it.”
