The Jacksonville Square has a new business open today. Holly Stewart has relocated her shop Holly Cakes at 23 South Central Park Plaza, which was formerly located at 1724 South Main in South Jacksonville. Stewart says she’s got lots of sweet treats for the area to enjoy.
“I’ll provide cupcakes, and cookies, brownies, cake pops to the Jacksonville community. I’ve been doing cakes for about a decade. I worked at SafeCo for about three years, and I then started my own business about two years ago and, here we are.”
Stewart says she’s also tinkering with some ideas of adding a few additional items later on.
“I might start doing things like ooey gooey butter cake, and pumpkin bars and blueberry bars. I have some good recipes thatI have been fiddling around with, so maybe we will offer even more sweets than we already do.”
Stewart said that her business hours won’t accommodate doing First Fridays on the Square because she bakes all night for business on Saturday. However, she said she is looking forward to the Downtown Concert Series to have people come across the street for a cupcake or two to enjoy.
Stewart is a 1993 graduate of Jacksonville High School and is a graduate of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, where she began her cake-decorating career at Larry’s House of Cakes where she specialized in 3D designs and odd requests for cakes. Stewart hopes to continue to provide cakes for all occasions as well as walk-in services at the downtown location.