10/28/2026
Chapter 3: Taking the Leap (2022–2024)
Yesterday we left off at the end of 2021, with Katelyn keeping EXTRAordinary Cheesecakes going while I recovered from COVID.
The next few years were interesting, to say the least.
We'd pick up a new restaurant, lose another, try something new, and keep figuring things out as we went.
One of our biggest partnerships was Roxy's Downtown. At one point, we were making upwards of 200 Littles a week just for them! That's a lot of cheesecake coming out of a kitchen without our own storefront.
We continued expanding into restaurants around Wichita, including Jumbo's, Sunflour Cafe, Crafted, Bronx Pizza, and Albero.
We also started experimenting with cocktail-inspired cheesecakes, with flavors like Old Fashioned, Amaretto Sour, and Sangria. Our partnership with The Forge helped us continue exploring those flavors.
And we kept experimenting.
By 2023, we'd created dozens of different flavors and even launched a separate EXTRAordinary Cannoli Company.
That lasted a couple of months before Facebook kept deleting our page, so we folded it back into EXTRAordinary Cheesecakes. Sometimes things just don't go according to plan!
Through all of this, Katelyn was doing nearly all the baking while attending Wichita State full time.
By 2024, we'd been at this for almost four years. We'd had some great successes, a few setbacks, and learned more than I ever expected about running a business.
But there was still something I'd hoped to do since the beginning.
Open our own shop.
In August 2024, we finally announced that we were opening a storefront.
We weren't just adding a place to buy cheesecake. We were planning ice cream, cannoli, and a whole lot more.
We were finally going to have a place of our own.
Tomorrow marks two years since we opened those doors.
And the last two years? Well, that's a story all its own.
