New Bakery Brings Red Velvet Cake Back Home To Fulton St.

When Cake Man Raven closed down his eponymous red velvet cake shop at 708 Fulton St. to pursue other ventures, it's fair to say he took a little slice of his neighbors' hearts with him. 

But locals with a passion for the Southern specialty dessert will soon be rewarded for going without so long: A new bakery, Piece of Velvet, is opening in the very same space, offering a menu obsessed with the stuff. 

Patch chatted with local resident and store manager of a Piece of Velvet, Shemiel Leo, who gave us a taste of what to expect from the new shop.

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Patch: Much of the staff at Piece of Velvet worked for Cake Man Raven when he operated out of 708 Fulton. Is he supportive of your new business? Leo: He is as supportive as we are of him and his new endeavors. After the former business closed, we had talented bakers and employees out of a job. So it made sense to bring back in these experienced people who absolutely love what they do. But please don’t get us confused; while our product is similar (we sell red velvet cakes) this is a very different business... we had to put our own twist, so we hope everyone likes it!  

I once had blue velvet pancakes in L.A. Do you plan to offer multi-color and multi-flavor velvets besides the classic red?  The store carries an array of innovative velvet-only products. We plan to captivate our customers with the most amazing red velvet cakes and cupcakes but will also introduce: caramel velvet, vanilla velvet, cocovelvet and pineapple velvet. However we’re not just talking about cakes and cupcakes as we want everything to be velvet. So, in time we plan to eventually include pancakes, waffles etc with the help of our customers through monthly competitions as well as some other surprises. 

Ooh, what else can you tell us about these customer competitions? Our competitions will vary widely as we aim to be as interactive as possible. We want to give our customers a voice so they will be provided with opportunities as huge as introducing new and exciting velvet flavors.

Custom velvet flavors! This is exciting. What took so long for Piece of Velvet to arrive?! Quite simply, we wanted to do it right! We have spent months meticulously planning the products that we want to introduce and sourcing the best ingredients as our success depends on customer satisfaction. We are also very community conscious and wanted to develop ways of giving back to the neighborhood rather than open a business without purpose.  

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The grand opening and ribbon cutting for Piece of Velvet will take place on Saturday, August 17 from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m. Those who arrive early will reap the benefits, as the first 300 customers will be given free red velvet cake. 

But if you'd like to make a late entrance like us, we've personally got our eye on the  kelly green-colored Mini Cocovelvet cake, featuring coconut-infused sponge cake iced with a coconut-flake and vanilla frosting.