Jennifer Samuels and her late husband Will Samuels started a gelato shop and a pizza parlor in Lakeview before pivoting to focus on king cake. They opened the original King Cake Hub in 2019. Now, Jennifer runs the Hub at Zony Mash Beer Project, where patrons can find 50 to 60 types of king cakes from more than 15 vendors from Jan. 6 through Lundi Gras (delivery is available after the first weekend via dlivery.live). The season opens with a King Cake Pageant on Jan. 5. For more information, visit kingcakehub.com.
Gambit: How did you get into the king cake business?
Jennifer Samuels: We got started at the gelato shop. We opened in November-December. We were doing some baking there. We were like, Carnival is coming, we need a king cake. We got started with that and had a following. It was a simple brioche, not a real sweet cake. We had local fillings, like a local strawberry, a Meyer lemon curd. We did a cream cheese one.
It morphed from that La Dolce NOLA king cake. After we closed the shop, we kept doing it at the pizza place for a while. We couldn’t cook it in the pizza place, so we rented a commissary kitchen. But then that kitchen closed. So then we started selling someone else’s brand. But then UberEats and delivery killed local pizza. But it was such a fun thing that Will thought, “What if there was one place to get king cakes?”
The first year, we only had maybe 20 different cakes from five or six vendors. But people gravitated toward the one-stop shop. That’s now how people buy king cakes. You don’t have to drive all around. Our house was like that. If someone was driving to Bywater, they had to go by this place and get a cake. And it’s not that much farther to Chalmette. But people come to us now. There’s less driving around.
Gambit: You started a drag King Cake Pageant to open the season. How is that going?
Samuels: With the craziness of opening the hub it was a lot to manage, so we moved it to the night before. It was a blast last year. We had a really good turnout. We set it up in the style of a traditional pageant, but with a Carnival slant. Instead of a swimsuit competition, it’s Carnival costumes. Who’s got the best costume? Can you put together something that will last all day?
We did a race where we gave the drag queens a beer and set up a bunch of Mardi Gras obstacles, like dancing groups and people with chairs and ladders, areas roped off. They had to grab their beer and get to the other end of Zony Mash and get their king cake and make it back with their beer and king cake. We had Aiden Abette, Debbie with a D and Katrina Waters, our reigning monarch. She came back the next morning to open the doors to the Hub and greet people. This year, we’ll have the ones we had last year, and we’ll have some new people.
'We wanted a bar with good food. And we kept hearing people say they wanted a place to drink good, affordable wine.'
Gambit: What else will people find at the Hub this year?
Samuels: We have one of the house float companies coming in to work on the decor. It’s crazy how much comes together at the last minute.
On the day it opens, we’ll have Josh Paxton playing in the beer garden, and we’ll have Hey! Cafe offering coffee and Paw Paw’s Donuts. It’s a festive atmosphere but not a full-on party. Since it’s on a Saturday, I think we’ll have a lot of people hanging out.
All my vendors from last year will be back. I am working on adding a couple more, and we’ll bring in some special things throughout the season.
We have a lot of traditionalists. I sell far more traditional king cakes than anything else. Caluda’s, Caywood-Randazzo’s and Gambino’s cakes are always in the tops with traditionalists. We have the Epiphany cake from Gambino’s. They make it just for us. It’s a little different than their traditional cake, which has a little more of an almond scent to it, and it’s like a birthday cake. Epiphany is more buttery brioche style and has a cream cheese and buttercream icing instead of the standard sugar.
There are people who are always looking for something new and something different. We have some exclusive cakes. I think we’re going to have a crawfish king cake this year. Last year was the first year we had a savory king cake. I had a team from Hogs for the Cause make a boudin king cake. It was really good, and all the money went back to Hogs.They’re volunteers, so we won’t have that one all the time, but we hope to see it a few times.
We’ve got king cake ice cream, king cake macaroons, candles and SugarLove Bakery makes king cake on a stick. I’ve got king cake nuggets. They come in a little clamshell with four nuggets and a dipping sauce. We’ll have anything king cake.
We started several years ago trying to bring in some cool stuff from local vendors who were doing things with sustainable Mardi Gras. That has always been a big interest — to highlight the things New Orleans is doing and get away from the beads. I don’t think anybody really wants those things once they get them in their hands. Then it’s how fast can I get rid of them? So we have some vendors who are doing some cool stuff that is reusable. We’ll have that and we’ve added some candles, the electric glitters and edible glitters. It’s cool to work with all the local companies and keep local dollars here.
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