A 21-year-old baker with a devoted Instagram following is swapping her renovated garage for a storefront on one of Kirtland's busiest commercial corridors, with plans to open a 1950s-themed bakery called RileyCakes in November. Riley Moodry is converting the space at 7621 Euclid-Chardon Road, a building that was not originally a bakery, into a shop with a red-and-white countertop and retro diner aesthetic.
Moodry is the 21-year-old owner of RileyCakes, according to Cleveland Magazine, and she has spent recent months balancing custom orders, decorating classes and construction work on the new storefront, often putting in more than 16 hours a day and working seven days a week. The property itself has a working history that predates its bakery transformation — the building previously housed non-food commercial tenants, including local service business FTTB Cleaners, LLC. Moodry is renovating the space with her father as RileyCakes outgrows the garage where she first built her business.
The storefront sits along a corridor that already draws significant local traffic. Euclid-Chardon Road is a major Kirtland civic artery that includes regional attractions such as the 235-acre Lake Metroparks Farmpark, a few blocks away at 8800 Euclid-Chardon Road, as previously reported by Hoodline.
From Childhood Hobby to a Growing Following
Moodry started baking as a child and began selling baked goods to friends and family at age 16, according to the same Cleveland Magazine profile. She attended the Young Chefs Academy in her youth before enrolling at the International Culinary Arts & Sciences Institute, which operates out of nearby Chesterland as the professional training branch of the Loretta Paganini School of Cooking. There, she helped chefs run public cooking classes in addition to her own training.
That culinary grounding has translated into online visibility: Moodry has built more than 20,000 Instagram followers, the outlet reports, drawn to her vintage-styled cakes featuring bright colors and edible glitter. She has become known for whimsical cakes, and she has said she fell in love with that decorating style. “I just love bringing people together through food,” Moodry said, per the profile, adding that seeing customers happy about their cakes makes her happy too.
A Niche Built on a Decades-Old Technique
The frilly, multi-tiered piping style that defines RileyCakes traces back to the Lambeth Method, a technique created in 1934 by decorator Joseph Lambeth to mimic Victorian architectural motifs through intricate buttercream work, according to The Nod Mag. That decades-old style has found new life among a much younger audience; the same publication reports that vintage Lambeth-style cakes have seen a massive viral resurgence on social platforms driven by Gen Z, with some specialty decorators reporting that up to 90% of their daily inquiries now request retro piped designs.
Moodry's rising profile within that trend has also opened doors locally. She was selected as a featured presenter at the Founders & Friends showcase co-hosted by Cleveland Vibes in July, held at Shooters on the Water, where she spoke alongside notable local culinary figures including chef Doug Katz, according to Speakeasy.
Why a Home Baker Needs a Storefront
The move from garage to storefront is also shaped by state rules governing home-based bakers. Under Chapter 911 of the Ohio Revised Code, licensed home bakeries are statutorily restricted to a single residential oven, according to the Ohio Department of Agriculture, a production ceiling that pushes growing operations toward commercial kitchens. Moodry's business reached that point as she needed additional workspace and staff beyond what her renovated garage could support.
Ohio's Cottage Food Production Operation rules had allowed her to get started with relatively little overhead in the first place. Those rules let home entrepreneurs produce non-perishable baked goods without state licensing, mandatory fees or annual sales caps, per industry outlet Cakery, giving bakers like Moodry room to build a customer base before investing in a retail space.
What's Planned for the New Shop
Once open, RileyCakes will continue making the custom cakes, cupcakes, cookies, brownies and pastries Moodry has built her name on, but she's also planning to expand into teaching. She intends to offer classes on decorating a 6-inch cake, guiding groups through the process herself, and plans to add baking-basics classes as well. “I want to teach people how to decorate cakes in different themes,” Moodry said, according to the Cleveland Magazine profile, and she has said she is not burnt out from the long hours despite the workload.
To manage the realities of running a small bakery, Moodry outlined a weekday-and-weekend split in a December Facebook update: custom pre-orders will anchor weekday production, while a limited walk-in menu will be available on weekends, a strategy aimed at minimizing food waste and controlling overhead at the new location. RileyCakes will continue its normal business operations in the lead-up to the storefront opening next month.
Kirtland, located in Lake County about 22 miles east of downtown Cleveland, recorded a population of 6,937 at the 2020 U.S. Census, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. For a small city of that size, a storefront bakery backed by a social-media following of Moodry's scale and a design style riding a national viral wave stands to become a notable addition to the local retail corridor when it opens in November.
