Regina Johnson, owner of gluten-free bakery RegCakes, was so inundated with orders during the holiday season that it prevented her from opening a new storefront location in Savoy under her preferred timetable.
“It’s a good problem to have,” said Johnson, a Pesotum-area resident.
One wouldn’t classify RegCakes as an overnight success story, but it’s close. Johnson began by taking specialty cake orders out of her home in 2015, then opened up in Lincoln Square Mall in 2021. That’s where the following grew for her entirely gluten-free menu, which began with cakes, cupcakes, cinnamon rolls and other bakery specialties.
Now RegCakes is open at 801 N. Dunlap Avenue in Savoy, Johnson having survived an onslaught of pre-holiday orders for her popular goods.
“It’s a little bit of chaos,” she said, “but it’s fun.”
Customers seem to be enjoying it.
“We started baking gluten-free cakes because I couldn’t eat gluten anymore but originally didn’t market ourselves as a gluten-free cake company,” Johnson said. “Until we realized, holy moley, the community really wants this. I just didn’t realize the market for it. So now we’re proud to say we are the region’s only dedicated gluten-free facility, brick-and-mortar bakery-wise.
“Once we realized the demand for safe gluten-free options we did a little less of custom cake-making and started to get into a little more mass production of what people wanted — good-tasting food. We started adding things like cinnamon rolls and cookies and dinner rolls and things like that. The response and the support has been tremendous. I feel really fortunate.”
RegCakes offers a growing variety of gluten-free products, including pizza crusts and brioche.
“One way we’ve expanded is to accommodate dairy-free (products),” Johnson said. “It seems to go hand-in-hand with the need for gluten-free quite a bit. So probably half our products are dairy-free. And we’re just starting to expand into vegan. In terms of product type, what we want to do is make it so that people have an easier time eating gluten-free like normal. We’re not into creating necessarily highbrow flavors or fancy stuff. We’re trying to make the very basic things good and accessible. So we’ve expanded, for example, into making dinner rolls. Or making take-and-bake pizza crust dough. We make cosmic brownies. We’re trying to make life easier for people.”
Moving from Urbana to Savoy was a bit complicated because of the timing. But RegCakes, which was open sparingly in Savoy during the holidays but kept a presence at Harvest Market, is now fully open at its new location.
“For one thing it’s much closer to me and a lot of my employees,” Johnson said of the new space. “It’s good for me and my family, and I hire several kids from Unity High School. But primarily we wanted a space that was really convenient for our customers. And really where we could create our own atmosphere. Being inside Lincoln Square Mall was convenient for very few people. Being on Highway 45, (with) a nice big parking lot, (is) easy on-and-off traffic. We wanted the space where we’re at because it’s got its own character. It’s an old brick building with a fireplace inside, a little something different. But it’s ours and we can make it however we want, and that’s hard to do when you’re sharing space inside a mall.”
For hours, menus and complete information on RegCakes, visit its Facebook, Instagram and web pages.