What to know
- Cake Your Way, a Vaughan bakery founded by Whitney Ware, is opening its second location at 825 College St. in Toronto’s Little Italy on Saturday.
- Ware started the business as a high school home baker and opened her first Vaughan store at 21; eight years later, the business has grown alongside a loyal customer base.
- The Toronto expansion came just three months after Cake Your Way introduced a walk-in menu in Vaughan and saw customers travel long distances to try its desserts.
- The new location will offer the bakery’s signature cookie pies, including giant stuffed cookies with fillings like fudge, Cookie Butter and peanut butter, as Ware sets her sights on expanding across Canada and internationally.
A popular Vaughan bakery is expanding into Toronto with a second location and is bringing its viral cookie pies along with it.
Cake Your Way is set to have its grand opening in Toronto’s Little Italy on Saturday, and founder Whitney Ware told Now Toronto that the project has been both challenging and rewarding.
The dessert shop will take over a previous bakery’s spot at 825 College Street near Ossington Ave, marking a major milestone for Ware, who started the business during her high school years.
“I started as a home baker to get lunch money when I was in high school,” Ware said. “It was something that always stuck with me; even after completing post-secondary, working different jobs, I was just always known as the girl who makes cakes.”
Ware said that her side hustle eventually grew through word of mouth and social media, allowing her to open her first location at 21-years-old, before the business continued to grow through the years.
Nearing a decade of Cake Your Way
Eight years after opening her first store in Vaughan, Ware has now spent over a week preparing to welcome customers to her second location.
“I could have never imagined creating such a community of people online, offline, young, old, in between,” Ware shared. “Just people supporting me from all walks of life, and it’s so nice to kind of see it come full circle.”
Ware added that it’s been a mind-blowing experience to see people she baked out of her home for follow her journey for this long.
“People that I started with making cakes for them at home are now supporting me in person, and it’s just really crazy, and I think the 20-year-old Whitney would be so astonished at how far we’ve come,” she said.
The decision to expand came only three months before the grand opening, after Cake Your Way’s Vaughan location launched its walk-in menu this year and received an outpouring of support from customers from all over.
“[We’ve received] so many comments from people coming from all over, meeting people who have driven an hour, two hours, people have taken our desserts on planes for their loved ones,” Ware said. “It’s like ‘okay, we’re on to something, and now’s the time because if we just keep waiting for the perfect time, it’s never gonna happen.’”
The College Street location will offer a similar atmosphere to the original bakery at 7007 Islington Ave. in Vaughan.
But Ware emphasized that the experience is about more than just the desserts.
“Everyone loves dessert,” she said. “I think our personality and our energy [are] definitely our unique selling point… we are really going big, not going home.”
As the previous bakery moved out of Ware’s new location, it was a mad dash to prepare the new dessert space.
“It’s literally giving me an adrenaline rush because we are opening this bakery in 12 days,” Ware said. “We got the keys 11 days ago, so it is guns blazing, boots on the ground. We are getting it done.”
Despite the hectic timeline, Ware said the experience has rejuvenated her belief in what she can accomplish.
“It just reminds me that I can literally do anything that I put my mind to. Nothing is too big or too small of a dream,” she said.
And her dreams shone bright, with Ware already thinking about expanding further, taking over the dessert scene.
“So, definitely, definitely want to take over Canada and the world, and open up in different cities, different provinces, different countries,” she said.
As the bakery grinds towards its Saturday opening, Ware says customers planning to stop by should try the bakery’s renowned cookie pies – giant cookies stuffed with multiple fillings, including fudge, Cookie butter, and peanut butter.
As Cake Your Way prepares to welcome a new demographic of customers, Ware said she is grateful for the community that helped the business reach this point.
“I just want everyone to know that I love, love, love everyone who supports Cake Your Way. You guys are the reason we are here, and we are thriving,” she said.
“I never imagined this would be the path that I’m on, but I’m here. I’m loving it. I’m enjoying. I’m learning, and I can’t wait for everyone to experience the magic we’re creating at Cake Your Way.”
