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East Side Cakes: Building Community, Baking Vegan

Local Upstarts

(SPONSORED CONTENT) Local Upstarts is a new, quarterly digital column that celebrates local entrepreneurs who have participated in the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation's UpStart program, a free entrepreneurship program for women and people of color.

When great skill meets great joy in service of community, something very special is born.

Community is at the heart of everything Meghan Chua does, from her inspiration for launching an all-vegan bakery to naming that bakery after the neighborhood she serves.

From the earliest stages of dreaming and planning, Meghan made a conscious choice to imbue her business plan with her values. “I was always keeping community, and especially our kind of hyper-local community, in mind. When I started East Side Cakes, there weren’t as many options on the east side that were also local businesses; you could buy vegan baked goods at grocery stores, but they often came from out-of-town brands.”

Meghan has been a baker all her life. She remembers learning alongside her mom when she was little and took her first cake decorating class in fifth grade. Several years ago, she began experimenting with vegan baking so that everyone in her extended family could gather ‘round the table and all enjoy the very same cake.

“When the rest of the family – many of us dairy-loving Wisconsinites – also complimented how great the cakes tasted, I knew I was onto something good. To me, providing vegan baked goods that both vegan and non-vegan people alike could enjoy seemed like a great opportunity to create a small business. I really wanted to be able to provide delicious, comforting, homemade baked goods to my neighborhood.”

Meghan took her dream to the UpStart entrepreneurship program in the fall of 2021, where she began to shape that dream into reality alongside a group of other new business owners, under the guidance of WARF-affiliated mentors. “UpStart really gave me the ability to look at myself as an entrepreneur and a business owner, which was not something that I had taken very seriously in the past. It empowered me to think about what’s possible.”

One year later, here's what’s possible: Meghan makes custom cakes and cupcakes to order through her website and is also deeply invested in the local farmers’ market and makers’ market scene.

“I didn’t think [when I started the business] that I would get so much out of it in terms of the community I’ve been able to build, or the community I’ve been able to tap into,” Meghan says, adding that the markets she attends are “such a wonderful experience every time. It’s so fun to start recognizing people, especially the kids who run up to you and say, ‘I want a cupcake!’”

Meghan Chua is on Instagram @eastsidecakesmadison where she shares tantalizing photos of her creations as well as the dates and locations of the many markets she attends. She invites you to drop by a market and say hi, or to check out her menu and place an order through her website: www.eastsidecakes.com.

Looking for more vegan goodness around town? Meghan recommends Sookie’s on the corner of Gilman and State Street for craft sodas, vegan ice cream, local beer, smoothies, and a variety of plant-based burgers.

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