Homemade cheesecake business grows

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. — While most people prepare for their retirement years by thinking about where they'll travel or how they'll spend their time relaxing, Dee and Tom Dannenberg have been preparing in a very different way.

They have spent the last seven years building a cheesecake business and developing other pastry recipes in preparation of opening their own bakery. Their retirement business, A Little Taste of Heaven Bakery, opened on June 30.

Both Dannenbergs are quite involved in the community. Most will recognize Tom from his 21 years with the Edwardsville Fire Department and his current position as captain. Others may know Dee because she's spent the last 18 years as an Edwardsville District 7 elementary teacher.

The Dannenbergs' children also grew up in the community, eventually attending and graduating from Edwardsville High School. Tom Dannenberg said the idea for the cheesecake business was actually Dee's for her retirement and that it came from following EHS Tiger football through their children.

“We're big high school football fans,” he said. “We would follow the Tiger football team to all their games in Chicago. Both of our sons worked with the athletic trainers and were football team managers. We'd always go to Eli's Cheesecake up there and bring back six or seven cheesecakes each time. It's very good cheesecake. But after doing that so many times we figured, well, we can do it ourselves.”

Seven years ago, after several years of tweaking Dee Dannenberg's cheesecake recipes, they began selling cheesecakes.

They worked out arrangements to prepare their cheesecakes in existing businesses — first in Coffee Talk Café and later in Chocolates and Amore — both of which have since closed.

When they vacated the Chocolates and Amore location, they took almost a year off to consider their options.

“During that year, we kept getting so many requests for cheesecakes that we decided that we'd talk to the health department and see if we could build a commercial bakery in our basement at home,” he said.

They did exactly that last August, but they quickly outgrew the space after they began supplying cheesecakes to local restaurants Wang Gang, Caffé Avanti and Fiona's as well as the entire chain of Joe's Pizza and Pasta, which covers locations from Effingham to Columbia, Mo.

“We decided that if we wanted to do a storefront, we weren't going to make it on cheesecake alone, so we started doing research and development on pastries and bakery products,” he said. “We got to the point where we were ready to open here, and pretty much the rest is history.

“This was probably a little more work than we anticipated, but nothing that we can't handle. And we've had a great response — just an overwhelming response. We've been so busy, and we've heard so many great comments that people are happy we're here.”

A Little Taste of Heaven Bakery carries the Dannenbergs' famous cheesecake in whole cheesecakes, by the slice, rolls or bites, which are one-inch square pieces of cheesecake dipped in milk chocolate or dark chocolate.

Cheesecakes are available in original, almond, strawberry and chocolate flavors. Special order cheesecake flavors such as Snickers can be ordered three days in advance.

Doughnuts, cinnamon rolls, turnovers, cream horns, brownies, kolaches, scones and other bakery items like gooey butter cakes and coffee cakes are also available. The bakery carries chocolate chip, sprinkle butter, peanut butter, and oatmeal raisin cookies as well as three premium cookies — chocolate chip, dark chocolate peanut butter chip — and their signature cookie, ginger dark chocolate. They also plan to introduce cakes and pies in the near future.

A line of beverages featuring Snapple and Sunny D brands and a line of St. Louis coffee with three varieties of roast rounds out the menu.

The bakery, located at 219 Hillsboro Ave in Edwardsville, is open 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays; 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fridays and 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday and Sundays. It is closed on Mondays. Parking is available across the street and special orders can be placed by calling 659-8569.

But don't expect to see Tom or Dee there every day just yet because neither plans to retire for a while yet. “We're going to keep all of our jobs,” she explained.

“I can actually retire in a little more than a year so we wanted to get it up and running,” he added.

Working at their full-time jobs while maintaining the bakery is going to require a lot of effort, but their extended family is going to help out, and they are prepared for the challenge.

“It's going to be long hours,” he said. “It's not going to be easy, but we really want to get it going so that when I'm ready to retire, I can transition into this.”

As the two laughed while reminiscing about funny stories regarding their business startup, it was clear that Tom and Dee Dannenberg are enjoying their journey together.

“We've had a lot of fun with it,” he said. “We both really enjoy doing it.”