In the Know
MAKING
IT!
small victory
Melissa Ben-Ishay built a big business on tiny cupcakes.
PHOTOGRAPH BY
WINNIE AU
Losing her job in advertising is one
of the best things that ever happened to
Melissa Ben-Ishay. Because if she hadn’t
lost her job in 2008, she wouldn’t have
needed to bake nonstop to quell her
anxiety, and she wouldn’t have ended
up with a multimillion-dollar cupcake
empire—all by age 32.
Melissa is the founder of Baked by Melissa,
a 14-store chain built on the appeal of
absurdly small cupcakes (they’re one-sixth
the size of a bakery cupcake). As the story
goes, she was baking so many of them when
she was out of a job that she started giving
them to friends. One of those friends worked
at a high-end public relations firm, and her
boss liked Melissa’s cupcakes so much that
she started ordering them for clients and
events. At the time, the cupcake craze was
well under way, and her miniature treats
gained a following.
For her first orders, Melissa baked in her
apartment kitchen and hand-delivered
the cupcakes.
Soon after, she
anted up to rent
booths at three
busy New York
City holiday
markets where
she charged
$1 a cupcake;
she sold out of 1,000 each day. “You have
to be willing to bet on yourself,” Melissa
says. She bet big again in 2009 by leasing
her first storefront in the high-rent
Union Square area. She has since opened
13 other shops around New York, including
a gluten-free store last year. Next on her
list: a Melissa-style makeover for macarons.
“They can be so unapproachable. I want
to make them fun.” And yes, of course,
they’ll be tiny.
“You have
to be willing
to bet on
yourself.”
34
FOOD NETWORK MAGAZINE
l
MARCH 2016