The Courier-Journal (Louisville)
Is Big Nita’s Cheseecake making the best desserts in town?
Last month, I celebrated a friend’s birthday with dinner at The Chef’s Table in Norton Commons. Every dish by chef Jake Brockman was delicious, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the dessert that ended our meal: a chocolate cheesecake made with an espresso reduction.
Chef Jake’s cheesecakes aren’t readily available, but fortunately, I’m a twominute drive from a Butchertown spot that offers a variety of these sweet treats: Big Nita’s Cheesecakes.
If you’ve ever taken a drive down East Main Street during the shop’s operating hours, you may have noticed a line of customers flowing out the door and onto the sidewalk. Nicole Burks says that this has been a regular occurrence since she and her fiance Roberto Davila opened the store’s doors this past January.
“We have not yet had a day that we have not sold out, since we’ve been at the storefront,” Burks told The Courier Journal, adding that she and Davila’s booming business began as a hobby about two and a half years ago.
“We were really in a crummy time in our lives,” she said. “I had just recently gotten sober, and I really needed something to keep my mind occupied.”
When Burks came across a recipe on social media for a banana pudding cheesecake bar, she thought that baking might be a great way to keep herself busy. But being low on funds, she and Davila weren’t sure that such a costly hobby was in their best interests. However, when the recipe continued to show up on Burks’ Facebook feed, she took it as a sign and ran with it.
“I’m a very spiritual person,” she said, “(and I believe that) if you keep noticing something you need to act on it.”
After making a batch of the bars and doling them out to friends, the requests started coming in. They started asking for strawberry, blueberry, and other flavors — and Burks was happy to accommodate.
“We just started making different ones, and that’s literally how everything started,” she said.
At first, she and Davila were baking out of their house. Eventually, they saved up enough funds for a food truck. And after that, the couple made the move into a commissary kitchen. Finally, on January 28, 2023, they opened the brick-and-mortar location. It was a day after Burks’ birthday — and she has been celebrating their success ever since.
“(We) have more business than we could ever imagine,” she exclaimed, adding that their goal with the storefront was to accommodate more orders and grow the business. But they quickly realized that the space barely has enough room for all the work that goes into being open only on the weekends.
“We prep all week for those three days,” Burks explained. “We have six employees that work for us now, and we all (have to) bake and prep all week (to) open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.”
Burks, Davila, and their team put dozens of hours into the nearly 3,000 treats that fly out the door each weekend. This includes 1,500 slices of cheesecake, 720 cheesecake-filled cookies, and about 200 cheesecake brownies and cheesecake bars.
“We basically specialize in all different kinds of desserts … but with cheesecake,” Burks said.
Though the business’s beginnings came from a recipe that Burks found online, all of the formulas used today are original. “That’s one thing that’s unique about our product,” she said. “No two recipes are alike.”
She added that the team is constantly trying new things and testing out different concoctions in the kitchen. If something seems to work well, they will offer it to customers.
The Big Nita’s menu changes weekly and is posted on Facebook and Instagram. Anyone hoping to get a taste of the offerings should check social media prior to heading over. Just this past Friday, Nicole created a post about being sold out before 4:30 p.m. — despite the fact that the store is slated to remain open until 9 p.m. on Fridays. In the post, she suggests that guests arrive 30 minutes prior to the shop’s opening to ensure they leave with the flavors and quantity of treats they want.
With autumn just around the corner, fall flavors like pumpkin spice snickerdoodle and caramel pumpkin spice are starting to show up on the weekly offerings.
“We rotate everything on our (weekly) menu, except the banana pudding and vanilla,” Burks said. “Those are our two staples that you can find … every week. Everything else will rotate off and come back around. We try to incorporate at least three new flavors (per) week.”
The banana pudding — based on the recipe that started it all — has been and continues to be the store’s biggest seller. “It just so happened that that first recipe was a cheesecake,” Burks recalled. “Had it been something else, I don’t know that (this) would have been our destiny.”
She added that Big Nita’s Cheesecakes has been more than just a thriving business; it has been a way to connect with people in the community and build relationships with the regulars, whom they refer to as their “Cheesecake family.” Burks explains that these customers have even formed relationships with each other.
“We have people that carpool together (to come to the store) every weekend,” she said. “It’s really cool to watch people build relationships because of your business. … We’re very blessed and very grateful. It’s insane how many people believe in us and support us.”
Know a restaurant that would make a great feature? Email writer Lennie Omalza at aloha@lennieomalza.com or Lifestyle Editor Kathryn Gregory at kgregory@gannett.com.