Lindsey Parks is living a sweet dream
Katherine Mansfield
Lindsey Parks was a fulltime preschool teacher who baked and decorated cakes for family and friends. In September 2021, she launched an online bakery and by March 2022 had established herself as the local dessertery Canonsburg Cake Company along West Pike Street.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Lawfully Wedded Raspberry, Peanut Butter Cup and Death By Chocolate are Canonsburg Cake Company’s best-selling flavors. Owner Lindsay Parks, a self-proclaimed chocoholic, said she’s having fun developing new flavors for summertime.
Before opening Canonsburg Cake Company along West Pike Street in March, Lindsey Parks ran the business online while working as a full-time preschool teacher. After setting up shop and selling out of desserts during Canonsburg's Old Fashioned Christmas in 2021, she signed a lease for her brick-and-mortar.
Business owner and baker Lindsey Parks puts the finishing touches on a small, round cake inside Canonsburg Cake Company. Parks decorates her decadent desserts in view of customers, who will often ask, "Is that spoken for?" before purchasing on the spot.
Katherine Mansfield
Lindsey Parks decorates a small cake inside Canonsburg Cake Company, which she officially opened in March. Parks keeps small cakes on hand for customers who need a birthday or congratulatory cake in a pinch.
Katherine Mansfield
Lindsay Parks baked her first wedding cake – a 5-tiered monstrosity, her words – in 2013, for her grandparents’ 50th anniversary. Nearly a decade later, Parks is working full time as a pastry chef and business owner at Canonsburg Cake Company along West Pike Street.
Parks sells Hilltop Pack coffee in her bakery in Canonsburg, and the Waynesburg coffee shop stocks Canonsburg Cake Company baked goods. Parks said she and the coffee shop's owner, Ben, go way back, and he has been instrumental in helping her get CCC off the ground.
Katherine Mansfield
The Canonsburg Cake Company’s sleek, minimalist interior is part of Parks’s vision for her bakery. The giant sign and full display case greet regulars and newcomers alike daily – until, of course, the baked goods sell out.
When the cookie crumbles, you set out samples. On a recent weekday, Parks offered visitors to Canonsburg Cake Company free bites of oatmeal raisin cookies good enough to eat but not quite pretty enough for the display case.
Take your hometown bakery with you everywhere you go. Along with a variety of gorgeous, delicious baked goods (think scones, blueberry muffins and yes, cupcakes!), Canonsburg Cake Company sells travel coffee mugs and water bottles.
Katherine Mansfield
On grand opening day, Canonsburg Cake Company owner and baker Lindsey Parks poses inside her brick-and-mortar with husband Zak, a computer engineer who handcrafted the bakery’s seating. The couple relocated from Greene County to Canonsburg six years ago.
By Katherine Mansfield
For Lindsey Parks, a brick-and-mortar bakery was the icing on the cake.
“It’s surreal,” said Parks, who opened Canonsburg Cake Company along West Pike Street in March. “I don’t think it’s really sinking in yet. It’s very surreal being my own boss, then kind of just doing what I want to do.”
What Parks wants to do, what she does daily, is bake and decorate a variety of beautiful, delicious cupcakes, muffins and assorted pastries inside her sleek, modern bakery. Parks looks so natural in a Canonsburg Cake Company-branded hoodie and ballcap, piping tube in hand, that it’s hard to imagine a bakery was never on her bucket list.
“This has sort of just, sort of fallen into my lap every step of the way,” she said. “I didn’t really plan for any of this to be happening.”
Parks is a self-taught baker who said YouTube, Facebook and TikTok’s “CakeTok” space are her classrooms. But the Greene County native can trace her baking roots to childhood: She spent many happy hours baking pies alongside her grandmother, Letha Longstreth. In 2013, Letha celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary, and Parks decided to bake a present for her grandparents.
“It was just sort of on a whim. We were having a celebration for them. And I thought, you know what? They need a wedding cake,” she said, noting her then-fiancé Zak helped bake and assemble the cake. “I didn’t know what I was doing. It was a five-tiered monstrosity of a wedding cake. I don’t know how that cake stayed standing. It should not have, but it did, so it must have been some kind of sign that we should try this.”
The cake was a hit. Family members and friends began requesting desserts, and soon friends of friends were placing orders.
When Parks started receiving orders from strangers, she decided it was time to make her side hustle official.
“When it’s for friends and family, that’s fine. I was just getting really concerned about, you know: I wasn’t certified. I wasn’t a legal business,” she said. “I needed to make this a legitimate business. I went ahead and did that. And from there, it exploded.”
In September 2021, the Greene County Chamber of Commerce (of which Parks’s mother, Melanie Longstreth, is president) hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the virtual bakery. By December, Parks was selling out of baked goods at Canonsburg’s Old Fashioned Christmas.
She met with Lisa Scarmazzi, Canonsburg’s economic development coordinator, who helped Parks find a space in the bustling downtown.
“We had our grand opening for the online business in September of 2021. And by January 2022, we were signing the lease here,” Parks said.
Together with her husband Zak, parents, and friends, Parks transformed the space into a sleek, modern brick-and-mortar. Zak handcrafted the long, wooden bench that faces the store’s chic display case and made a matching coffee stand for his wife.
Parks continued working as a teacher and filling online orders through the renovation process. She assumed her storefront would serve as a pickup place for clients.
“Originally, I was thinking, I just want something where people can come and pick up (online orders). We found the space and realized that we can put in the display cases. That way, if people want to just stop in and pick up cupcakes or something, they could,” Parks said. “I never really thought the foot traffic, people just stopping by would become so much of … the business.”
Parks is already becoming a staple of Canonsburg’s downtown. She’s got regulars and delights in welcoming new customers inside for freshly-baked goods and coffee from Waynesburg’s Hilltop Packs Coffee (she and the owner, Brian, go way back, and he carries Cake Company products in his shop).
She also takes pride in catering to specialty diets. Parks offers dairy-free options and plans to add gluten-free and vegan goods to the display case.
“We actually had a customer come in with their little girl. They came in, and they got her a cupcake. They were all excited,” she said. “I didn’t realize at first what was happening. I just thought, oh, that’s cute. They’re taking pictures, having a good time. And then the mom told me, ‘This is her first cupcake.’ (The little girl) has never been able to have cake because of her dairy allergy. It’s little moments like that that are just so heartwarming.”
The first-time business owner said her affiliation with the Greene County, Canonsburg and Peters Township chambers of commerce has been invaluable in baking Canonsburg Cake Company into a reality.
“Greene County and Peters, they put out a lot of really good weekly emails and things … from the Small Business Association, like webinars about first-time small business owners. They’re really good at sharing those resources and links out to their members,” Parks said. “And then, through Peters and Canonsburg, we did a mixer. It was like a speed dating networking event. It was so cool.”
At the mixer, Parks connected with Wild Things president Tony Buccilli, who placed Canonsburg Cake Company’s largest cupcake order to date. Parks is busier than she could ever imagine and recently hired her father, Brian Longstreth, as the bakery’s general manager. Childhood best friend Mandi Fordyce works alongside the upbeat Parks a few days each week.
“I’m used to, as a teacher, having a couple of months in the summer where I’m just off. I think my brain still thinks this is some kind of summer vacation,” she laughed.
The Canonsburg resident and resident baker is developing recipes for Canonsburg Cake Company’s summer menu, and Parks hopes to expand her hours beyond the 5 p.m. closing time on weekdays.
Parks is so happy to be serving the community and said beyond additional staff and those gluten-free and vegan dessert lines, her goal is to “keep baking and keep the doors open.”
“I’m just so happy to be in a downtown that’s so vibrant,” said Parks. “All of the businesses through town here are taking off. Just seeing the town take off and blossom and being part of that is really, really cool.”