JUST DESSERTS
Craig turns cheesecake-making hobby into business success
WHEN Craig Taylor started making cheesecakes for his family and friends in December 2019, he had no inkling that his new-found hobby would become his full-time career in just a matter of months.
Though the 28-year-old from Merthyr Tydfil had always enjoyed cooking, it wasn’t until his parents gifted him a stand-up mixer that Christmas that he started to experiment with desserts.
As photos of his beautifully decorated cheesecakes – with fresh fruit and favourite chocolate bars – were shared on social media, more and more people wanted one of their own. In March 2020, Craig took a leap of faith and opened his own cheesecake and dessert business, The Cheesecake Guy, in Pant Industrial Estate, just a stone’s throw away from his home.
Despite the business opening at such an uncertain time with the first coronavirus lockdown being announced, the shop’s success has snowballed with 30,000 fans on Facebook.
Craig said: “It started because my parents bought me a stand-up mixer. I just had an electric hand one previously and it would take a long time. With that I started making desserts at Christmas for my nan and my parents – there was cheesecake everywhere.
“I started it from the house just as something to do on the side. I didn’t really think about selling cakes back then, it was more of just a hobby for me. Then I took my first order maybe in the first week of January. I did a competition on social media and had an order around the same time and they both really enjoyed them. Then from there, with them posting photos of the cheesecakes, I kept having messages and it just grew.”
Craig has had no professional training in food or catering. Instead, he has relied on his passion for cooking and his creative flare to get him where he is today.
He said: “I did cooking in school, but never really stuck to it. I always loved cooking, but when it came to exams, I never did very well. After school I went into a food production factory, but that was just packaging and loading lorries.
“It’s mainly come from enjoying cooking in the house. I’m used to cooking steaks and savoury things like that, and then I just started experimenting with desserts – I just love food and cooking and put a couple of pictures on social media just as a novelty.”
When Craig started making cheesecakes he was working for a fire safety company and even though people wanted to pay for his cheesecakes, it was still just something he intended to do on the side for a bit of fun. But as more customers came his way, an opportunity arose for him to move his hobby from his parents’ kitchen into a shop.
“I kept making them and people said I should sell them so I just kept experimenting,” he said.
“My sister-in-law owns a shop which is next door to mine now. She messaged me one day and said the unit up to let was interested. I took a few weeks to consider it before taking it on and then lockdown hit after I signed the contract. I was close to pulling out but I decided not to.”
Supporting Craig’s venture, his dad and brother – who are tradesmen – along with a few others helped turn the empty unit into a functioning dessert shop. Though Craig spent most of that year on furlough, his plan was to carry on making cheesecakes alongside his regular job when he returned. However, when The Cheesecake Guy opened in August last year its popularity meant it was unfeasible to work there only part-time – and Craig wasn’t the only family member who had the same idea.
He said: “As soon as I opened, it just went crazy. On the first day, the queue went outside the shop and around the corner and we sold out within two hours. I was originally going to stay at my old job and my partner, Alice-Kate, was going to run the shop in the day while I went there to make cheesecakes in the nights. However, it didn’t work out that way and I had to give my notice in and work here full time.
“My brother, Ricky, came over to help one day after work and he ended up staying as well. He’s now 50/50 my business partner. Then my mum, Tracey, got made redundant, so she’s working here as well, so it’s pretty much family run.”
Even though it was clear that people loved his food early on, Craig said the business was initially overwhelmed by the unex
pected demand. He said: “My father was going around every single Lidl and Aldi because we were getting our stuff from there before we secured a wholesaler. He’d go everywhere, even to Swansea, to fill up our fridge for us because it was hard to keep up with the demand.
“The first day we opened, it was me, my partner and my mother and then my sister-in-law offered to give us a hand. We would stay and make cheesecakes until 2am or 3am so we had them ready for the next day.
“Back then, we only had a shop which is small and not big enough for us to make the cakes while we were open.”
It was clear that the business was growing into something exciting very quickly and so the family came together and developed a plan so everything would run smoothly.
Craig explained: “Where we’re based, there was a little kitchen facility on-site so we contacted the landlord and got that. It means we no longer have to shut the shop to make the cakes. I’m in the kitchen all the time with my brother, his partner and my cousin, then we have my mother and my partner in the shop as well as a young girl who helps out on the weekends. I also run all the social media side of things, which is like a job in itself, but we’re coping well.
“We’ve had really good feedback so far – we seem to have new good reviews every week and I love reading through them. We’ve also got quite a few returning customers.”
Craig said the business can sell up to 40 to 50 cheesecake slices in one day, as well as up to 400 cheesecake jars on its busiest days – which generally came during lockdown.
“Lockdown was a worry for us when we opened,” he said. “But they turned out to be our busiest times. Our queues throughout lockdown were crazy. A lot of people weren’t going anywhere, so they had money for nothing, with furlough people were off work and bored and wanted to treat themselves.
“The girls in the shop have been fantastic, they’ve dealt with some crazy orders which is why when we first started, we couldn’t produce the amount we could have possibly sold.”
And it’s no wonder demand is so high, with a vast array of cheesecake flavours on offer as well as milkshakes and other treats, it would be hard for anyone to resist.
“We do cheesecake slices and cheesecake jars in about 14 or 15 different flavours at the moment – Kinder Bueno is our most popular,” said Craig. “We also do thick shakes, hot cookie dough and flavoured milk in glass bottles. We also serve Llanfaes Dairy Ice Cream from Brecon – which I really wanted in the shop. Now we’ve just bought a really nice coffee machine so we’re looking at getting training for that.
“We’re currently experimenting with vegan recipes. We’re still yet to get a recipe we’re really happy with, but it’s something we’re working on for the future.”
Since opening, the family has worked closely with other local businesses, supplying the likes of Little Dragon Pizza Van with cheesecakes and Bike Park Wales with delicious treats. However, their talents haven’t gone unnoticed further afield either.
Craig said: “One of my proudest days was when Terry’s Chocolate Orange got in touch with me. They reached out to me on Instagram and they sent me a box of their products to make a cheesecake, it was amazing. Then a few weeks ago, Jaffa Cake got in touch with me so hopefully I’ll be working with them soon.”
The success of the business has meant Craig and his family are already looking to expand so their treats can be enjoyed by customers in different parts of Wales – something Craig said he never thought would happen when he first opened his Merthyr shop.
“We are looking for another shop to open at the moment,” said Craig. “We’d like to open two [more shops] if we can out of the area, we’ve been considering the likes of Swansea. In the first year of us opening, we would never have thought we’d be in this position to be able to open other shops.”
He said when he looks back on how he got to this point, he feels proud of everything he and his family have achieved.
He said: “It feels good, even when I’m eating a cheesecake I think ‘I made this’, it makes you feel proud and like everything has been worthwhile.”