Not just your regular cheesecake, Pleesecakes’ creative desserts are in a league of their own.
We’re two friends who went to school together then ended up crossing paths again in our early twenties. Joe was busy doing all types of graft, from landscaping to bar work. Brendon left school and just painted and painted away until one day Joe started working for Brendon. We ran a painting and decorating company together for three years – luxury homes and blocks of 40 apartments were our day-to-dayer!
We were foodies from birth: Brendon makes a banging homemade sausage roll and gives them out at Christmas instead of presents! And Joe was randomly making these cheesecakes. We knew that one day we’d end up doing something with food in some way.
Rubbing down skirtings and rolling ceilings by day, putting pretty little raspberries and gold chocolates on cakes by night – that was the routine! People loved them, and it was an obvious thing to pursue. Enter Brendon, business partner and doublekeen foodie. He was a clear choice to help drive this hobby into something big (and Joe needed someone to wash up)! Plus, his knees were sore from rubbing down untold skirtings.
On 3 January 2017 the Pleesecake Instagram account was set up. We got a shout-out from Joe Wicks (The Body Coach) and boom – 10k followers in 24 hours! A business is born and Pleesecakes is abaatttt on the scene. We met in a cafe the following morning and realized we had to do something with this! So we set up a website and email. We had 50 orders within hours. It was a shock to us, as well as our wives, girlfriends, friends and family, who didn’t know what was happening!
Since the birth of Pleesecakes there have been highs, lows, early mornings and late nights. A standard day would be a 12-hour shift, and a long day could be a dutty 20-hour shift. We didn’t realize the amount of work and struggle that goes into growing a business. Yes, we’d had experience from our previous business but scaling a business in an industry in which you have zero experience or expertise was a challenge to say the least!
Chase your passion in life, because doing something for a large proportion of your time that you’re not passionate about is a waste of life! Our main focus is on creating experiences and memories through making and eating good, healthy and indulgent food, specifically in the many different flavours, shapes and sizes of a cheesecake!
Pleesecakes by Joe Moruzzi & Brendon Parry, Quadrille, £15.
