PC: Maggie Zerbe

Who We Are

Inclusive. Sustainable. Funfetti.
An all-day café for all of life’s moments. Philadelphia’s neighborhood destination for the best cakes, pastries, beverages, and gifts.

Cake Life is a labor of Love.

Love for feeding people. Love for blowing their minds. Love for celebrating good times together. Love for comforting people when times are tough. Love for our customers and employees alike. 

We all punctuate our lives with baking. Whether the moment is big or small, Cake Life marks your major milestones, daily victories, and everything in between with baking that transports you… to your past or to your future, to somewhere you grew up or have never been before, Cake Life takes you somewhere special.

That’s why we do this. Why we bake. Why we exist.
Why we’re the best. 

The Love that Cake Life puts into our community is just as important. That’s why we partner mindfully. Why we pay living wages. Why we choose climate-conscious packaging. Why we compost. Why we donate. 

That’s why we are somewhere special. 

Come see for yourself. Consider yourself invited. Included. Appreciated. Welcome. Hungry…

We put our values first.

  • We’re here for you. Everything in the case and everyone behind the counter is hand-selected to help soothe hard days and celebrate good ones.

  • We’re here to excite and we don’t compromise. High-quality ingredients, a sense for seasonality, and artisanal bakers come together so everything at Cake Life is elevated, memorable, and delicious.

  • We bake with intention. Our day-to-day decisions and business practices are selected with care and consideration for their impact on our customers, employees, and community.

  • We make a positive impact. We bake in as many opportunities to give back as possible, from prioritizing local partnerships to donating unsold goods to local organizations.

Our Story

From day one, Cake Life co-founders Nima Etemadi and Lily Fischer dreamed of building a bakery featuring unparalleled, unpretentious baking, and doing it in a way they could be proud of.

Now, six years later, Cake Life is an ever-evolving embodiment of that dream: a sustainable retail café and bakery offering the very best cakes and pastries in Philadelphia, all in a welcoming, inclusive experience that both our customers and employees can feel good about. Even Beyoncé likes our cakes--we've baked her birthday cake twice now! (Let’s be real, that’s a dream come true every time…)

PC: Dominic Perri

“Baking naturally overlaps with the queer experience;

it is an authentic, creative expression with the power to build and heal our community. When we bake, we share our knowledge, joy, and history; our hands and hearts mix ingredients and inspirations to express our lives, stories, and ancestries.

Baking creates a special and unique space for queer expression, one that is informed by infinite layers of hardships, triumphs, pain, love, and pride. When we bake, we invite our community to the table to share, taste, and heal—with cake.”

—Nima Etemadi, Co-Founder & CEO