Beloved Cheesecakes belongs to God. I am my Beloved and He is mine. He is the one that wanted Beloved Cheesecakes. My name is Jen. I came out of a domestic violence marriage in 2014 with three boys in tow. In the winter of 2015, I was on a food share program. I received a flat of blackberries. I didn’t know what to do with so many berries so I decided to make a blackberry cheesecake for my son’s teachers for Christmas. Little did I know from that gesture that would launch me on a journey of making cheesecakes as a side hustle for income to provide for my sons and myself being a single mom. It became something much more than I ever anticipated. Friends, family, my kids, teachers, everyone raved about them. They all kept telling me to open my own business. I wanted nothing to do with that.
My desire was to be a social worker. I graduated Portland State University Magna Cum Laude in 2018 with my bachelors in Social Work. My internship was in criminal justice. I tried to get into the field after I graduated but doors did not open. Doors started opening for Beloved Cheesecakes. People started requesting custom cheesecakes. People who I never thought were requesting them…dentists, businesses, schools. By word of mouth I became the cheesecake lady. Then the idea of opening a brick-and-mortar shop started to become a reality. On a whim I found a space downtown Silverton and inquired about it. Shortly, a Kickstarter was started for me. Everyone in the community got behind me and supported me and fundraised. I had friends and friends of friends across the nation get behind me and supported me. The appliances and everything that I needed for the shop started to fall in my lap.
I’m frugal. I found things through craigslist and garage sales so I was able to be frugal with the money I received. The first weekend of August 2019 was our grand opening. There was a line stretched down the sidewalk before we opened the doors. Business was good! We were rolling. Three weeks after we opened a resort in our town came to me and wanted our cheesecake. At the time we were selling our slices for $7.25 and the resort sold their slices for $11.00 a slice and we were stocking them with cheesecakes weekly. More restaurants started selling our cheesecakes shortly after.
I wanted to integrate social work into the shop… we planned to hire those with barriers (i.e. individuals with disabilities, backgrounds, trauma survivors etc.) One of our first employees was autistic. He was such a joy to have to work for us. It also was a place of resource for those coming out of domestic violence. It was wonderful to be making cheesecakes and providing cheesecake therapy to the community. The title on my business cards is Cheesecake Therapist.
Everything was going outstanding until March 2020. Then the lockdowns and restrictions came about. The community rallied around us small businesses as best they could. March through June I continued making special orders. Then June of 2020 came and I was done. I was no longer going to abide by the unlawful mandates. I’m essential to my boys and I need to provide. I opened my shop and never looked back after that day.
I had to deal with a community that went from supporting us to turning against us. We have always valued and cherished our country and our God-given liberties. Coming from a childhood of trauma masking emotions or facial expressions was not an option for myself or my sons. We continued to show the public our smiles and joy during the unlawful masking mandates. We accept all individuals, “masked or maskless, vaxxed or vaxedless, whatever gender someone identifies with, whatever religion, race, political affiliation etc. We just love people and want to serve cheesecake. Many in our community didn’t like that but we preserved.
I chose to listen to God and not man and because of that decision divine appointments started to happen. I had a divine appointment which then led me to meet and be interviewed by Pastor Rob McCoy and Kirk Cameron. They did a documentary called “Non-Essential” which featured me as one of their small business segments in October 2020. That kept us afloat from the support of Pastor Rob’s church. We shipped many cheesecakes that holiday season.
Then in April of 2021 Fox News show Fox & Friends interviewed me live for a short 4 minute segment. After I got off the zoom call my phone, my email, text messages, and Facebook, all started blowing up. It was completely overwhelming. Through that we spoke with countless customers who prayed with us, and ordered cheesecakes through us, still to this day we still have customers that order cheesecakes from us.
Oh yeah, and during those last two years of not complying… I won the Gold Medal for Best Dessert in the Willamette Valley contest for 2020 and 2021. In the last two years, we started getting involved in politics and started taking constitution classes. We started becoming involved in Freedom Rallies. I started emceeing Freedom Rallies. Started attracting the attention of candidates running for Congress, senate, governor, etc.
Fast forward to April 2022, we were vendors with our new-to-us food cart at the ReAwaken America Tour. We thought we would be selling cheesecake the whole time. Little did we know that Jen was going to meet Judy Mikovits, General Flynn, Eric Trump, and Clay Clark.
We don’t know the future of Beloved Cheesecakes but we sure know who does and we hold onto Jesus as He works in mysterious ways.
We offer the best cheesecake in America. We offer love, a hug, a smile, prayer, an ear, a friendship many times becoming family, worship, paint nights, a networking space, freedom of choice, etc.
We are open from Tuesday-Thursday 12pm-7pm
Friday & Saturday 12pm-8pm
115 N. Water St. Silverton, OR 97381
124 Broadalbin St. SW, Albany OR 97321
Why Beloved Cheesecakes…because you will be served the best award-winning cheesecake full of love and joy.
Beloved Cheesecakes exists to serve a beloved community, state, and nation because every person deserves to be loved, especially with assorted slices of heaven.
