BUFFALO, N.Y. — If you told Shetice Jackson when she was a culinary student at the Emerson School of Hospitality or the Culinary Institute of America that she'd one day own a bakery, she'd probably have a hard time believing you.
"I've always been a chef my entire adult life, but cooking. I never knew how to bake and honestly I didn't like baking," Jackson told 2 On Your Side.
After working all over the country and spending almost a decade as a chef instructor at Buffalo State College, Jackson gave in to the sweet feeling that baking eventually brought her. It all started when she decided to make a birthday cake for her mom one year.
"I put a tiara on there, and she almost cried because she loved the cake," Jackson remembered. "I became obsessed with the smile that I put on her face. She was so happy."
Almost eight years later, Jackson is still putting those smiles on faces from her own bakeshop on William Street in Cheektowaga.
"My mother told my favorite aunt, she called her and said, 'Shetice is cake crazy. All she talks about is cake now. I told her I don't want to hear anything else about cake.' So, that's why I named the bakery Cake Crazy," Jackson said.
Soon, Jackson will expand and open her first restaurant, Crazy Good Eats. The artisan soup spot is moving in to the former Tony's Ranch House on Main Street in Buffalo.
"Six soups we'll have every day. We'll have sandwiches, salads, and seasonal specials that will change weekly. And we'll also have desserts that will be provided by the bakery," Jackson said.
They're expected to be open later this summer. For now, the focus at Cake Crazy is getting ready for Black Restaurant Week, which runs from June 12 to June 19.
"We're offering one dozen of our cupcakes for $20.22 That's a savings of $18," Jackson said.
She is proud to be one of the only bakeries involved in the event.
"We have so many Black owned great restaurants," she said. "It's kind of like I'm the icing on the cake here. So it just means a lot to be able to participate in this."
Whether you buy a single cupcake or several dozen, the support means the most.
"It is the best feeling ever and still to this day, sometimes I'll leave work and I just cry because we have people from all over. Rochester, Grand Island, Tonawanda. From everywhere who come to support my business. and they are happy to spend their money. and it just makes me feel so good," Jackson said.
For more information on Black Restaurant Week, click here.