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From Torts to Tarts: A Different Recipe for Success
WASHINGTON - After two years of long days and nights reviewing briefs, Warren Brown decided that a career in law wasn’t as sweet as he had hoped. He decided to pursue his true passion. Baking cakes. “I could dream and fantasize about it, the food production … and come up with a lot more clarity from it,” says Brown, 34. That clarity drove him to leave his job four years ago as a litigator at the Department of Health and Human Services and to open the bakery of his dreams. He aptly called it Cake Love. Walking into the cozy bakery at 15th and U streets NW, in the area of Washington formerly known as “Black Broadway,” a visitor is immediately greeted by the sweet smell of rising cakes and churning butter cream frosting, making it easy to understand how Brown fell in love with baking.
But it’s the business side of things that helps him justify his decision. Brown says sales have exceeded his expectations and continue to grow. With a 12-person staff helping him, Brown is now turning his attention to expanding his business. He hopes to bring Cake Love into the suburbs this year, possibly to Rockville or Bethesda. Brown’s decision to leave behind a prosperous and stable law career to bake cakes makes sense when you consider his childhood. Born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1970, Brown showed an interest in bread making in the fourth grade. In high school, he remembers cooking for himself twice a week. By the time he entered Brown University, his cooking abilities were becoming noteworthy. “He was amazing,” says Brian Monnin, president of Metastories Inc. and a former classmate at Brown. “Whether it was a late night or chilly outside, there was always something good going on.” While attending The George Washington University School of Law in the ‘90s, he began experimenting with baking. “I had a New Year’s resolution to learn how, because I felt I needed to drop, what I termed, this fear of flour,” he says of his first year of law school. Graduating in 1998 with degrees in Law and Public Health, he moved into his job at the Health Department, but he said something was missing. “Just a couple of months into it, I was doing work, and it was late at night and I was one of the only people in the office,” remembers Brown. “[I thought], either I shouldn’t be working late alone, or this should be a little more exciting to me.” To cope, Brown indulged his passion and spent nights baking out of his small D.C. apartment. Soon enough, friends, colleagues and complete strangers were placing orders, and Brown was obliging. His daily routine was exhausting. He’d arrive home at 6 p.m., bake for the next four to five hours, wake up early the next morning to deliver the cakes, and then head back into the office. Encouraged by the positive feedback he was receiving on his cakes, and with his frustrations with law growing daily, Brown decided two years as a lawyer might be enough. But he eased into his next career by first taking a three-month leave of absence from the government. He took a free six-week entrepreneurship class, began offering samples of his cakes at local art galleries to generate buzz, and started researching other local bakeries’ products. At the end of the three months, he knew he had found what was right for him. Brown, then 30, decided to make his leave of absence from law permanent. Monnin recalls when Brown first told him the news, “I thought it was great. I thought he should pursue his passion and make lots of cakes, and stick to what he knows,” he says. Business at the bakery was steady at first, but not stellar. It’s picked up considerably since. The bakery now offers 15 different kinds of cakes -- all made from scratch -- and delivers throughout the District. It has found an avid following. One customer came in recently to buy her friend’s birthday cake, saying, “All she wanted was a Cake Love cake.” In 2003, Brown opened Love Café directly across the street from the bakery, giving customers a place to relax and enjoy some coffee with their cake. He continues to fine-tune the menu to make it easier to replicate it when Cake Love expands. His ultimate goal: To take Cake Love national, offering a mix of stock cakes and regional specialties at every location. Though he says he is much happier now, he still experiences some doubts with his new profession. “It produces a lot of anxiety,” he says. And he says being a small business owner is “a little lonely.” He adds: “There is no one behind you. The people that are behind you are the sharks waiting to grab everything from your business.” His advice for anyone finding themselves in an unsatisfying job? “Direct yourself to greatness, answer your call, and answer to yourself.” Copyright © 2005 and 2006 University of Maryland College of Journalism
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