Tacoma’s cake queens are moving. New digs in another city will feature sit-down cafe

The Cat & Rabbitt, a takeout-only cake shop that since November 2020 has had Tacoma swooning over six-layer slices outside a window on Sixth Avenue, will open its first full-service cafe by June in downtown Puyallup.

The new bakery at 111 Stewart Ave. will allow owners Terryn Abbitt and Julia (Catherine) Brown infinitely more room to bake, including for whole cakes and custom orders, and will — for the first time — offer seating.

Don’t expect fancy porcelain plates, though: The boxes are here to stay.

“Keep the vibe,” said Abbitt. “It’s who we are.”

Also, admitted Brown, nine of 10 customers would ask for a box anyway because these are no ordinarily sized slices.

In the front, guests will order from a fancy pastry case, behind which a custom neon sign with the shop’s name and logo will be hung any day now. The airy white room, outfitted with a roll-up garage door and cafe tables, will bloom with “pops of pink,” green plants and a floor sealed with iridescent glitter. Coffee and espresso will highlight beans from Seattle’s traditional Italian-style roaster Caffe d’Arte.

About two-thirds of the 2,000-square-foot space will be dedicated to the kitchen, with ample room for prep, baking and decorating. They will have a walk-in cooler, a spacious dry-storage closet and an office that will double as a break room.

“We were just greedy for kitchen space,” said Abbitt.

In addition to selling through around two dozen cakes a day, they also fulfill five to eight whole-cake orders every week — a number that would have been much bigger if only they had the capacity, both spatially and staff-wise. Every cake and every ingredient — from the local berry jams in summer seasonals and caramel in the December-only German chocolate to the cream-cheese buttercream frosting in myriad flavors and, naturally, the cake batter — is crafted by the proprietors. They eventually hired a third baker, Alexis Teves, who will assist with training their hopeful staff of about 10 in Puyallup.

They generally rotate flavors every couple of weeks, amassing a collection of more than 200 recipes, they estimate.

“We’re at a point now that the flavor creativity is like, ‘We’ve done that, we’ve done that, we’ve done that,’” said Abbitt. One thing they know for sure is that eight-ish at once is the sweet spot. Brown remembers having 14 in the case at one point, which they determined was a few too many: “People couldn’t make up their minds!”

CAT & RABBITT ON THE MOVE

It’s a bittersweet moment for the bakery’s ever-growing fan base and its creators, who hadn’t planned to even temporarily vacate the city where they got their start.

First, they have known for a while that they would have to leave the kitchen inside The Pine Room Events Center, as owner X Group Restaurants has other, as-yet-undisclosed plans for the building at 2811 6th Ave. Except for one year-long stint, their lease has been extended just six months at a time, complicating long-term plans and sometimes prohibiting accepting orders for special events, including weddings.

Second, and perhaps more pointedly, they outgrew that kitchen almost instantly.

What launched as a dozen to 15 cakes in eight flavors a day in the throes of pandemic downturns quickly ballooned to 25 at peak times. Each yields about a dozen slices. That amounts to between 47,000 and 78,000 slices a year. In Puyallup, that number could jump to upwards of 100,000.

The amiable duo, who both earned their chops in the local industry over several decades, including with X Group, made it work. Well, “work” is an understatement: Lines regularly snaked down the block and around the corner, especially on Sundays when Brown whipped up her sourdough cinnamon rolls. (Look for the rolls on Sunday and maybe also Saturday at the new shop, as well as a few daily cookies.)

They leased the Puyallup building, across from the popular Crockett’s Public House, all the way back in 2022. The Puyallup Main Street Association spilled the beans on social media a touch too early, which the bakers mostly laugh about now that they see the light at the end of a long, costly construction and permitting tunnel.

“We wanted to keep it secret because every single day, people were asking: ‘When are you opening in Puyallup?’” recalled Abbitt.

Noting nearby offices, the core of independent businesses downtown and frequent community events like the recent Taylor Swift festival , they are “excited to be part” of the neighborhood. (Abbitt also lives in nearby Sumner, and Brown graduated from Puyallup High School.)

Once they’re settled, they plan to reinvigorate their search for a Tacoma outpost that will be fed by their new Puyallup home. In future years, they hope to expand elsewhere in the region, too.

“We will definitely have a storefront in Tacoma,” said Abbitt. “We just have to find the right one.”

THE CAT & RABBITT CAKE SHOP

▪ Original Location : 2811 6th Ave., Tacoma — closing April 28

▪ Wednesday-Friday 12-4:30 p.m. (or sell-out), Saturday 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

▪ New Location : 111 Stewart Ave., Puyallup — target opening June 1; anticipated hours 6 a.m.-6 p.m.