Cake Café owner Steve Himelfarb goes to bed early these days, ideally around 7 p.m. if he can swing it. It feels strange, going to sleep just an hour or two after the sun goes down, but it’s the only way Himelfarb knows he can manage the midnight wake-up call coming his way, an alarm that rousts him from his warm bed, carrying with it a message that by now, he knows all too well: Time to make the king cakes.
It’s Carnival time, and at Himelfarb’s Marigny bakery, like so many other bakeries in the city, that means round-the-clock king cake production.
Once upon a time, the king cake arrived in New Orleans as just a piece of the Carnival celebration.
“It definitely turns into a second business here,” Himelfarb says. "I’ve got blinders on right now — all I’m doing is doing what needs to be done for the business.”
Customers wait in line to as fresh king cakes sit on trays at Cake Cafe in New Orleans, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2019.
In the days leading up to the season’s kick-off on Jan. 6, Himelfarb already had more than 50 orders for king cakes, and he estimated his team would double that in walk-in sales the first day. The fact that the season is extra long this year — 59 days — means king cake procurers across the city have ramped up their operation in the wake of the coming onslaught.
As consumers, we have our own ways of handling king cake overload, from office rules designating one cake per day (or week) to gluten-free versions popping up everywhere to appease those optimistic early January dieters.
But how do business owners, in particular the smaller operations, handle the frenzy?
Himelfarb relies on time-tested traditions: For the past decade, one employee has been in charge of making the dough, and most of the extra staff hired for the season are returning employees.
“There are not too many new people, and we keep trying to tell them what to expect,” Himelfarb says.
In 2017, the local grocery chain Rouses Markets sold more than 500,000 king cakes during the roughly two-month season, which is a 24-hour operation for employees in the store’s bakery headquarters. Bigger businesses may have the backing to hire dozens of new employees to staff up for the season, but smaller shops rely on a just a handful of dedicated extra staff to make ends meet. Himelfarb estimates his café will average roughly 3,000 cakes this season.
“We’re not a machine, we’re a small place,” Himelfarb says. “I bake them all here and a couple of people finish them off.”
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Though the café sells a number of different king cake iterations — including the occasional bacon-topped boudin version — the café’s best-selling item is by far the fresh apple and goat cheese king cake. The production team usually sets a limit of about 100 cakes per day — which is the most the bakery can handle.
As for work-life balance? “It doesn’t exist,” Himelfarb laughs. “I think everyone knows it’s going to be a grind, and during the middle of that grind you just have to figure out what each individual person needs during that time and try to keep a sense of humor. I’m not going to say there haven’t been meltdowns, and everybody is tired. You just hope for the best.”
ADVOCATE PHOTO BY J.T. BLATTY - Chaya Conrad developed her Bywater Bakery in New Orleans after a career running bakeries for big names in the grocery business.
Bywater Bakery owner Chaya Conrad says she relies on a similar time-tested approach to the season. The former bakery director for Rouses Markets has been making king cakes for nearly 20 years, and this year will mark the third season for her flagship Dauphine Street bakery.
“I kind of have a formula for how the season goes, so that helps, because you kind of know where the peaks and valleys are going to be,” Conrad says.
Conrad concedes the inevitable mishaps can still take her crew by surprise.
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“The team hears all of the horror stories,” she said. “You can plan all you want and it still gets chaotic ... running out of babies, or running out of boxes, not having the ingredients — that kind of thing is always nightmarish. You can plan what you can plan but there are always shipping issues and manufacturing issues — sometimes things come up and you have to scramble.”
Conrad’s signature cakes feature a brioche dough and an “ooey-gooey” butter smear that melts into the cake as it bakes. Last year the bakery sold 5,000 cakes and Conrad says she’s expecting to top that this year, as word-of-mouth business for the shop has grown significantly over the past year.
As for occasional breaks from the slog, Conrad says there are little — if any — until Fat Tuesday finally arrives.
“We try to go into the season as rested as you can,” she says. “ You just know that this is your time to shine.”
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