March 20, 2023 | Sarah Fetters
Cake. What if a slice of confectionary goodness embodied more than butter and sugar perfection?
What if a slice was the visual representation of a passion turned business and a bringing together of people?
Tisha Petteway McFarland ’98 not only enjoys that piece of cake but bakes it, too.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) communications professional and her husband, Anthony, turned Tisha’s hobby of baking into the Honey Bun Cake Factory. The duo took a cake recipe originated by North Carolina families and developed it into several flavors.
“I had the recipe, and then my husband took it to the next level,” Tisha said. “We started developing recipes and now have more than 80.”
It all began with the classic, which is a moist cake swirled with cinnamon and brown sugar and topped with a vanilla glaze. Tisha baked her unique recipe for friends, family and coworkers for years. Anthony, whom Tisha was dating at the time, wondered if she ever considered selling the cakes. She reluctantly agreed to offer them at a local market near Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., one Saturday morning in April of 2012.
Armed with 30 cake slices, the two sold out within an hour.
“Anthony said, ‘This is something.’” Tisha recalled.
The Honey Bun Cake Factory was born.
“We started going every weekend,” she continued. “Then people started looking for us. We kept selling out.”
A decade later, the selling out is continual. The business has grown from selling at a local market, to selling directly to restaurants, to opening a retail store in Bryans Road, Md., which today has eight employees.
"Anthony had the idea of trying to sell to restaurants,” Tisha said. “Our first restaurant started out purchasing between one and three full, large cakes about three days a week. By the end of the month, they were ordering 10-15 per week. It just kept picking up. My husband went to restaurants and went from one to five. Within a year, we had 10 or 12. Within two years, we had 20. Now, we’re in over 100 restaurants in the Washington, D.C., area.”
Business success may look easy today, but the path had some rough spots. The Honey Bun Cake Factory store was a gamble in itself, opening in April 2020. The McFarlands had the storefront and lease before the pandemic and decided to take the chance.
During the pandemic the McFarlands wanted to avoid laying off any of their employees. Through ever-strengthening ties to the local community, especially with other small businesses, all staff remained employed.
“The community has been so supportive,” Tisha said. “People came in and said they’d visit once or twice a month to keep us going.”
“Now we try to pay it forward,” she continued. “There are other businesses around, and we want to showcase their products in our store. We know it’s hard. We had a lot of people help us. We can now offer that help.”
One way the McFarlands are doing this is by pairing with a local business that sells sandwiches and salads out of their store.
“It has been a great partnership,” Tisha said. “They make salads, subs, soups and provide a different type of food to our community.”
Whether customers come in for cakes, sandwiches, salads, brisket or something else, Tisha adores the community relationships the store has created.
“I’m a true Southern girl who grew up on a farm, so I have that family-oriented background,” Tisha said. “I love when customers taste one of my cakes for the first time and say, ‘This feels like my grandmother.’ It just warms my heart. We try to create a family atmosphere and provide great customer service for all our customers.”
Some of her favorite customers are friends she met at UNCW. Her lifelong friends come in the store when they’re in the area, buy cakes online or share her information on social media.
“I have so many memories!” Tisha said of her time as a Seahawk.
That’s no surprise, as her tenure on campus was jam-packed with activities. She worked in the Leadership Center, now part of UNCW’s Campus Life Department, was a volunteer coordinator, sang in the Gospel Choir and participated in the Black Student Union, NAACP and Student Government Association.
A different activity, cheerleading camp before ninth grade, initially brought her to UNCW. She felt welcomed during the trip, and the thought of attending UNCW never left. It was the only school she applied to as a senior in high school.
The community remained as supportive during college as it was during that impactful cheerleading visit.
“Anytime I was concerned about something, whether I could continue my education for financial reasons or anything like that, I always had someone I could go to or at least help me figure out a resource or a solution,” Tisha said. “I was not alone. UNCW always went the extra mile to try and help other minority students and make sure we didn’t fall through the cracks. That does make a difference when you’re a minority student. That’s one aspect that I loved about UNCW.”
Her time in the classroom at UNCW, where she majored in communication studies, also paved the way for her 16-year career with the EPA. She is the communications team leader for the Office of Mission Support, serving as the liaison between her office and the EPA’s Office of Public Affairs. Daily she is taking complex concepts and breaking them down into understandable bits for the EPA’s communications efforts.
As for the Honey Bun Cake Factory itself, it is looking to expand to grocery stores and find a second location. The company’s food trailer will continue to visit large-scale festivals and events on weekends, including possible adventures into North Carolina.
While Tisha did not make a Homecoming journey in February, she would love to see Seahawks who visit the Washington, D.C., area.
With both careers in full swing, Tisha has her cake and is eating it, too.