Classic Cake reopens Cherry Hill location with beloved desserts and ‘a lot of smiles’

Classic Cake reopened in the Short Hills Town Center in Cherry Hill on Wednesday, four years after a fire damaged the retail store and several others in the Camden County strip mall.

A mural with “have a delicious day” in big letters invites folks to explore the display cases of cakes, pastries, and more at the beloved South Jersey bakery’s newly restored retail location. The 2,100-square-foot store offers 24 seats for customers to hang out with a cup of coffee and dessert.

“It’s an elegant store, but more importantly we built a cake studio,” said co-owner Barry Kratchman. “All the wedding cakes and all the occasion cakes are being made in our store now. That’s the biggest difference.” The store specializes in elaborate — or “wow” as Kratchman puts it — cakes for special occasions.

Carol Neulander and Judy Stern founded Classic Cake in 1982 in Audubon, N.J. The company changed hands several times over the years. Kratchman, who co-owns the bakery with sister Karen Gold, purchased it in 2007. Executive pastry chef Michael J. D’Angelo joined the company in 2021.

He is a three-time recipient of the Pastry of the Year award by the American Culinary Federation South Jersey Chapter, with training from Atlantic Community College’s Academy of Culinary Arts, the Ecole Valrhona Chocolate Course, and a sorbet and ice cream seminar in France.

In 2020, the fire shuttered the South Jersey retail location, and the pandemic soon after closed the Philly location at Suburban Station.

Kratchman ran operations out of the Short Hills Deli until March 2023. Kratchman continued business at his Voorhees home, with loyal customers picking up orders every Friday for a year.

On reopening day, customers flooded the store with “a lot of smiles,” Kratchman said.

“[Reopening the store] has been a vision and a dream,” he said. “It took a while, but the store is unbelievably perfect. It’s exactly the culmination of all the efforts we made.”

📍486 Evesham Road, Cherry Hill, N.J., 08003, 📞 856-751-5448, 🌐 classiccake.com, 🕙 Tuesday to Saturday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.