Francheska Velazquez
Play to Learn Childcare
The Backstory
Renata Papadopoulos has been baking stunning, memorable cakes since 2005.
Renata emigrated to New York to attend a flight school in Long Island. When she met her husband, the U.S. became her permanent home. Her love for baking sparked again when she became a mom. She enrolled in cake decorating classes and attended the Mini Pastry Program at the French Culinary Institute in New York.
Lovely Cakes has been recognized by Brides magazine and The Knot, and received the Couples Choice Award from Wedding Wire. In 2016, Renata competed on – and won – the Valentine’s Day episode of the Food Network show “Cake Wars”.
“My love for baking began when I was still a child in Brazil,” she explains on her website. “My grandmother was my biggest culinary teacher and remains to this day my greatest inspiration. The artistic eye came from my mom, a plastic artist and muralist. By combining what I have learned and inherited from both of them, I am now able to create delicious and beautiful cakes!”
Renata emigrated to New York to attend a flight school in Long Island. When she met her husband, the U.S. became her permanent home. Her love for baking sparked again when she became a mom. She enrolled in cake decorating classes and attended the Mini Pastry Program at the French Culinary Institute in New York.
Lovely Cakes has been recognized by Brides magazine and The Knot, and received the Couples Choice Award from Wedding Wire. In 2016, Renata competed on – and won – the Valentine’s Day episode of the Food Network show “Cake Wars”.
“My love for baking began when I was still a child in Brazil,” she explains on her website. “My grandmother was my biggest culinary teacher and remains to this day my greatest inspiration. The artistic eye came from my mom, a plastic artist and muralist. By combining what I have learned and inherited from both of them, I am now able to create delicious and beautiful cakes!”
The Norwalk mom bakes every custom cake from scratch, in her Stratford studio.
How Women's Business Development Council Helped
Her first contact with WBDC came in 2013, when the growth of her business, Lovely Cakes, meant the purchase of a commercial kitchen. She took advantage of WBDC’s free entrepreneurial counseling services to draft a business plan and secure funding for her own commercial kitchen through grants and loans. Most recently, she accessed EMG funding toward the purchase of a bakery truck.
“Nobody could foresee what 2021 would bring the wedding industry,” Renata reflected. “When I applied for the grant in the height of the Covid Pandemic, we wanted to get a food truck to sell cupcakes and cake pops. Nobody was hosting parties, and selling small things was how we stayed a float in 2020.”
“But then in 2021, the event industry was playing catch-up and we had more wedding cake orders than ever! Delivering multiple cakes on the same day became a challenge. For this reason we decided to apply our grant toward the purchase of a refrigerated van instead.”
“Nobody could foresee what 2021 would bring the wedding industry,” Renata reflected. “When I applied for the grant in the height of the Covid Pandemic, we wanted to get a food truck to sell cupcakes and cake pops. Nobody was hosting parties, and selling small things was how we stayed a float in 2020.”
“But then in 2021, the event industry was playing catch-up and we had more wedding cake orders than ever! Delivering multiple cakes on the same day became a challenge. For this reason we decided to apply our grant toward the purchase of a refrigerated van instead.”
Website
Location
195 Charles Street, Stratford, CT 06615
info@lovelycakes.net
Contact Phone
203-842-0500