With almost 120 cakes to pick from, SpoCake has a taste of something sweet for everyone

To get into almost any kind of event, it usually takes a ticket, some cash or another form of compensation.

But to get into SpoCake on Sunday, all it took was a cake.

Cake lovers from around the Spokane area gathered Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Gesa Pavilion in Riverfront Park for a taste of something sweet. Around 120 people brought all sorts of different cakes, homemade and store-bought, to get into the doors of the first SpoCake event.

“We saw this on Instagram in a larger city that’s across the country and we just wanted to make it happen in Spokane,” said Megan Kapaun, one of the organizers. “We wanted to bring cake lovers and community together.”

Kapaun partnered with a friend of hers, Elizabeth Moore, to bring an afternoon celebration of a variety of cakes to Spokane. Through a community grant that the city had for rental space, a number of donated boxes from Rosauers and Super 1 Foods, along with coffee from First Avenue Coffee, Kapaun and Moore were able to make their dream a reality.

For the event, Kapaun made three cakes. She made a chocolate cake with a whipped chocolate butter cream and chocolate crunch bits spread on top, a lemon blueberry cake with cream cheese frosting and finally a towering chocolate chip icebox cake.

Moore also brought three cakes. She made a Frangelico cake with buttercream flowers. For those unfamiliar, Moore said a Frangelico cake is similar to a pound cake. Frangelico itself is a sweet, golden hazelnut liqueur. Moore also brought a lavender cake with a berry Chantilly cream filling and a pistachio cake with salted caramel, pistachio ganache and pistachio brown butter cream frosting.

It took less than an hour for their decorated, neatly arranged cakes to turn into thin slices of sweet, sticky rubble. As time progressed, more and more people left with boxes filled with an assortment of different cakes.

Doyle Wheeler, of First Avenue Coffee, was taking photos at the event and also getting a taste of cake when he could. He called the event a win-win, as it both builds community and allows people who enjoy cake to meet other like-minded individuals.

“To me, unicorns were invented to make happy people smile,” Wheeler said. “That’s what cake is, too. Cake makes happy people smile.”

He said his favorite cake of the afternoon was a purple, Earl Grey cake with a lemon curd filling and a vanilla Italian meringue buttercream. It was made by his former lead baker and kitchen manager, Esther Way. She recently left First Avenue to start making pizza dough. Way, 23, feels like she often doesn’t bake as much at home since she started working in a bakery, so the shift from a bakery to making pizza represents a push for her to bake at home once more.

Similar to Doyle, Ava Gordon is another person who favored Way’s Earl Grey cake over everyone else’s. Gordon, 22, brought a mocha cake with cardamom butter cream and pistachio sesame brittle to Sunday’s event.

She said she really got into baking during COVID but admitted she’s been interested in baking since second grade when her dad, who made a pecan pie, lost in a competition to a lemon meringue. Gordon called her father’s loss completely understandable, but one she never got over. For the past three weeks, Gordon has worked at Boot’s Bakery, a gluten-free and plant-based bakery.

Having worked in both large, commercial bakeries, like Safeway, and smaller bakeries, like Boot’s, Gordon said whether her job in a small bakery is a living nightmare or a breeze in the park depends mostly on the owners and management. She sees baking in her future, but wants to move to France and start a new life with her husband. France is known for their baked goods and Gordon noted that a “bad” bakery over there is equivalent to an incredible bakery in the United States.

Craig and Leslie Joseph ventured from the Tri-Cities to Spokane for the cakes and to support family. Leslie Joseph’s sister is Moore, one of the lead organizers. Even for Craig Joseph, who’s not exactly a cake aficionado, it seems that SpoCake had a little something for everyone.

“(My wife’s) just a cake fan, so I got dragged along,” Craig Joseph said. “I was a little skeptical, but am shocked at the success. I didn’t realize there was a cake subculture. I mean, I love cake. My taste buds are very simple.”

Editor’s note: This story was changed on Sept. 29, 2025 to correct the spelling of Megan Kapaun’s last name. Also, in the photo with Moore and Kapaun, the women were misidentified.