Cake & Joe, the cafe and pastry shop with storefronts in Pennsport and Fishtown, is opening its third location Wednesday morning in Center City. The business will mark the expansion with free mini cakes for its first 100 customers.
Owners Sarah Qi and Trista Tang’s new 1,200-square-foot shop is at 1735 Market St. on the ground floor of the BNY Mellon Center. Qi and Tang are former high school classmates who met in Beijing nearly two decades ago. Their business specializes in gourmet mousse-filled cakes. Tang, a pastry chef who makes everything from scratch, bakes small individual-sized cakes in addition to full-size cakes.
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Cake & Joe’s menu also has muffins, pastries, coffee and coffee drinks and tangy calpis, a Japanese beverage made from fermented milk. Like the shops in Pennsport and Fishtown, the Center City location will have sandwiches and salads, too.
Qi and Tang opened their Pennsport shop at 1404 E. Moyamensing Ave. in 2020, operating as a to-go business during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their Fishtown location, at 2012 Frankford Ave., opened in 2022.
“Philadelphia has been so good to us these last five years, and we are excited to move into yet another neighborhood and serve another part of the city,” Qi said in a statement. “This new location will have the most offerings we’ve had yet, and we are looking forward to really leaning into our Chinese heritage for our menu.”
Qi said the shop in Center City will serve coffee into the early evening, which she believes will fill a void.
“We think this is a perfect location for us, especially considering so many coffee shops in the city close early,” she said.
Qi and Tang are searching for additional storefronts to open more Cake & Joe locations later this year. The Center City shop opens Wednesday at 10 a.m. Regular hours will be 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week.