Sometimes missing your train is a good thing.
A few weeks back, I missed the last Virginia Railway Express train of the morning into downtown Washington, DC, which forced me to wait an hour and a half in Old Town Manassas for the subsequent Amtrak train. I figured I’d walk over to the only coffee shop in Old Town, Simply Sweet on Main, grab a cup of java, and sit with my laptop for ninety minutes, working on my current novel. While walking on Center Street towards Main, I approached a storefront which had been sitting dismally empty since before I’d moved to Manassas two years ago. It wasn’t empty anymore. In fact, it appeared to be… a second coffee shop!
I looked at the sign on the window. “Persnickety Cakes.” I stared inside at their menu board. It listed all kinds of coffees–lattes, frappuccinos, espresso drinks, and plain, ol’ American coffee. How sad I’d been two years ago, during my first visit to Old Town Manassas, to learn from the owner of Prospero’s Books (the neighborhood’s sole used bookstore) that Old Town’s only coffeehouse had closed barely two weeks earlier. About nine months later, Simply Sweet on Main opened up in the location of the closed coffeehouse. And now there was a second choice. Things were looking up for Old Town Manassas, the town invigorated, I imagined, by the sesquicentennial observances of the battles and events of the Civil War, particularly the two battles of Manassas/Bull Run.
A man I figured for the proprietor saw me staring at his menu board and waved from behind the counter, gesturing for me to enter. I waved back and decided to go in. I love Simply Sweet on Main and the folks who own the place and work there, but I wanted to support this new business, as well. I introduced myself to the owner, discovered we share a first name, and explained that I’d missed my train and was looking for a cup of coffee and a place to be for an hour and a half. We chatted some more, and Andy Goon asked if he could join me at a table next to the big windows looking out onto the hundred year-old commercial strip (I was his only customer). He told me that Persnickety Cakes’ main product line was their custom-made cakes, which could be ordered for parties, birthdays, or special occasions, or by restaurants for their dessert menus. But he and his family also offered items for the walk-in trade (like me)–muffins, coffees and teas, and fancy cupcakes in a plethora of interesting flavors, including Black Forest, red velvet, peanut butter, cookies and cream, and chocolate mint.
I asked Andy what he’d been doing before he’d opened up Persnickety Cakes a few weeks earlier, and if this was his first business. He told me he’d been a manager for Countrywide, the mortgage company which had been bought out by Bank of America and which had virtually imploded during the mortgage crisis of 2008-2009. Thousands of Countrywide employees were laid off, Andy among them. He told me he was actually glad he’d gotten out; he’d seen things go on that he didn’t want to talk about but that would stun and horrify people outside the financial industry, and the enormous pressures brought to bear on him during his final years with the company had turned him into someone he hadn’t liked much, a frazzled father too often short and curt with his three daughters, two sons, and his wife.
His wife, Tanya, had always loved to bake, and she’d long harbored the dream of opening her own bakery. Andy and Tanya decided this was the time to take the plunge and open their first business together, while they still retained savings that they could invest in their new effort. They had lived in Manassas for a number of years and had always loved the traditional, small-town commercial streets of the Old Town district. They’d observed with sadness how, one by one, many of the long-established small businesses along Center Street and its side streets had closed during the recession. They selected a location next to a barber shop which had managed to hang on, a storefront which had once housed a hobby shop but which had been vacant for several years. What they weren’t quite prepared for was the extent of the renovations the space would require, and the lengthiness and complexity of the permitting process.
Since the space had never been used for food service before, it would require a brand-new bathroom, one fully up to code and meeting all of the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. Andy and Tanya split those costs with their landlord. However, they were faced with a huge unanticipated expense when their contractors discovered a layer of old asbestos tiles in the course of the work. The presence of asbestos triggered a whole new set of environmental reviews, regulations, and requirements and pulled in additional municipal overseers. The landlord balked at paying for many of the new costs. Andy and Tanya, having already sunk a good portion of their savings into this location, were faced with having to decide whether to cut their losses and abandon the store or to stick with their original plan and try to weather the asbestos-related expenses. They decided on the latter. It was a nerve-wracking decision; they didn’t know whether their savings would last long enough for them to actually open the bakery, then provide enough of a cushion to carry them through while they built their clientele. They sweated it out and aimed to open no later than the beginning of July, so they could benefit from the crowds sure to be pulled to Old Town Manassas by the anniversary of the First Battle of Manassas/Bull Run and all the city’s historic reenactments and special events. But delays in permitting and inspections caused them to miss their target opening date by a full month. Persnickety Cakes finally opened its doors on August 6, 2011.
Andy introduced me to Tanya, who had been baking in the back while we’d been talking, and to two of his three daughters, who were assisting their mother. I asked Andy and Tanya how they’d met. It turned out to be a story as sweet as one of their cupcakes, reminding me of an older America, an America that had prized its melting pot as one of its favored symbols. Andy’s family were Chinese Americans who owned a Chinese restaurant in Falls Church, Virginia. Years before Andy and Tanya ever met, Tanya’s mother, an African American, had been a regular customer at Andy’s parents’ restaurant. As teens, Andy and Tanya ended up working at the same McDonald’s, where their discovery that Andy’s best friend and Tanya’s best friend were cousins seemed to ratify their growing mutual attraction. They now have five teenaged children, all of whom help out in the bakery.
I took my three boys into Persnickety Cakes this past weekend, after we’d played games and listened to salsa and merengue bands at the Latino Festival at the Harris Pavillion in Old Town Manassas, a couple of blocks away. Unlike my first morning there, this time the bakery was bustling with customers. I asked Andy how business had been going in the five or six weeks since the first time we’d met. He looked at me with an expression of grateful amazement and told me he’d been selling cakes as fast as he and Tanya and the kids could bake them. I asked Levi, my oldest son, if he’d like “Mr. Andy” to bake him a birthday cake for his party come early November. Levi, having sampled a cookies and cream cupcake, enthusiastically replied “Yes!” He wanted Andy to invent a new flavor for his birthday cake, and helpfully suggested a combination of raspberry, coconut, and peanut butter (and I know Levi doesn’t like coconut). Andy gently suggested that we go with a flavor we already know Levi likes… like cookies and cream. Sounds good to me!
I couldn’t be happier for Andy’s and Tanya’s success. They took a huge risk with their family’s precious resources, and so far, it appears to be paying off for all of them. One of his daughters told me she wants to be an entrepreneur like her mom and dad when she is older. The fact that Andy was able to transition from the wreckage of one of the nation’s most infamous mortgage companies to opening his own business, while simultaneously helping to revitalize a corner of one of Virginia’s most historic neighborhoods, a business district which had been been partially hollowed out by the recession, gives cause for optimism that America’s traditional strengths of family, entrepreneurship, and “do-it-yourself, chase-that-dream” gumption will help pull us out of our current slump.
Persnickety Cakes is located at 9105 Center Street in Manassas, Virginia (571-379-8685; www.persnicketycakes.net ). They are open from 8 AM to 8 PM Mondays through Saturdays and from 11 AM to 5 PM on Sundays.
