With a following throughout Central Illinois, Cakes by Lori is now located inside the Mahomet IGA bakery.
Lori Martin has always loved being artistic and baking for other people. When her love landed her a job at the Roundbarn IGA in Champaign more than 27 years ago, her creativity was able to take off in a way that often isn’t expected in a grocery store setting.
But when the Roundbarn IGA closed, Lori was left to find another venue for her specialty cakes.
Martin had dropped many wedding cakes off at Hawthorne Suites throughout the years, so they invited her to partner with them by giving couples a personalized wedding cake for selecting the hotel’s venue for the celebration.
Over time, Martin’s following extended outside the Champaign-Urbana borders with orders coming all the way from the Chillicothe area.
Martin does not believe she will lose those customers just because she’s in Mahomet now. And she has been excited to learn that many of the clients that ordered from her during her time in Champaign live in Mahomet.
Because for Martin, baking cakes is also about building relationships.
“Earlier this year I had a couple come in for a consultation for a wedding cake, and they were flipping through my portfolio and they found a picture of her mom in there,” she said. “I had made her parent’s wedding cake.”
“And then you kind of become the family baker. After the couple is married for a while, then you get a call saying we’re having a baby, we need a gender reveal or baby shower cupcakes, then you start doing birthday cupcakes.”
“You become part of their family.”
While Mahomet IGA will keep their bakery manager and staff, still producing the same cakes and cookies as before, Martin will now be on staff to take custom cake orders.
With flavors like lemon, coconut, white, chocolate, red velvet, pumpkin spice, apple spice and spice cake, Martin will make cakes for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, bridal showers, baby showers, gender reveal parties and even divorces.
Cakes by Lori are all made to order, so everything will be made fresh without additional product on display or in storage.
To order a cake from Martin, contact the Mahomet IGA.
