We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Samantha Strange a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Samantha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
So I actually went to college for Sports Broadcasting! I wanted to be on the court reporting for Kentucky Basketball haha. I minored in culinary just for fun and quickly found out I hated being on camera. I planned to go into radio and continued to take culinary classes. One day they had us made a fat free cheesecake for dessert – it was gross. I was the sweetheart of a fraternity at the time and was baking for their chapter meetings, so I tried out a Lemon Blueberry (full fat) cheesecake for them and a Toffee Chocolate Caramel cheesecake for my roommates and I – they were delicious! They started joking around that I was the cheesecake girl and they would always ask me to make it. When I moved back to Columbus it was my signature dish I would bring to dinners / parties etc. People started asking to buy it and I decided it was time to make a business name just for fun and come up with some pricing, get a fun logo. Still all very “just for fun” in my head. Ill Mannered Brewery reached out to see if I would be interested in a cheesecake & craft beer pairing! I made 400 mini cheesecakes in my parents kitchen and brought them over to the brewery…we sold out in like under an hour. Everyone was asking where they could order and I ended up squatting behind the bar and making an instagram page quickly. Now here we are!
Samantha, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Most of that is in the last question haha! We make cheesecake (obviously!) and then any treats that can have cheesecake involved in them – cheesecake cookie sandwiches, cheesecake shooters, cheesecake push pops, etc.
We do a lot of catering and weddings – we like to work with the customer and figure out exactly what they want and how we can make it happen…it’s fun to make things different! Everyone is unique, their cheesecake should be too!
We like to get creative and have fun, with theme days, pairings, cheesecake march madness, advent calendars, etc.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
So we actually opened our first location in Hilliard – April 2020. so like…. a couple weeks into the world shutting down due to COVID. All of our previous business leading up to retail was catering and wholesale, and in the course of one week, due to COVID, we lost all of it. Weddings canceled, restaurants closing down, etc. So when we opened up shop I really had no clue what to expect. Thankfully the community showed up big time. We had lines wrapped around the building every day, selling out by early afternoon and pumping out as much cheesecake as we could make. We were doing curbside pick up, free deliveries, anything possible to make customers feel safe in such a weird time. Thankfully that has all mostly subsided and we are just getting back into regular business outside of COVID, but now with 3 locations and 1 more on the way this spring!
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
I feel really lucky to have found the people I did during COVID. It’s like people who would have never been looking for jobs, now lost theirs and I was able to offer them such a fun experience. I show up 6 days a week and help in the kitchen whenever they need me. Be present and be understanding. Try to keep everyone in the loop and keep things laid back. But at the end of the day you always have to do what’s best for your business and they will always have to do what’s best for them!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thecheesecakegirl.com
- Instagram: @thecheesecake.girl