Metro Roundup: Homewood resident cooks up an idea to aid people in the concert industry

When the COVID-19 pandemic derailed the concert industry, Homewood resident Jay Wilson discovered a new passion: baking cheesecakes.

His new business, called Jay’s Cheesecakes, donates 100% of its profits to concert support staff. The Cakes for Crews fund has made a huge impact — in August, Jay’s Cheesecakes celebrated more than $10,000 donated to concert staff.

The concert industry holds a special place in Jay’s heart. He’s been a concert promoter at Red Mountain Entertainment for the past 12 years.

On March 12, a day when events across the country started announcing cancellations amid public health concerns, Jay was at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport about to board a plane to Georgia for a concert. Then he got a phone call informing him that every concert in the near future would be canceled.

He spent the next two weeks postponing or canceling over 100 concerts. He began to wonder, “What the heck am I going to do?” he said.

Then came his birthday, and he told his wife Teresa he wanted a New York-style cheesecake. Earlier in his career, he would travel to New York City for work and stop by the Carnegie Deli for a cheesecake, but that deli has since closed its brick-and-mortar location. He asked Teresa if she could make something similar to the famous Carnegie Deli cheesecakes.

“She got the recipe, tweaked it and made it,” Wilson said. “We ate it as a family, and we all looked at each other and said, ‘Holy smokes, that’s as good as the Carnegie Deli.’”

Wilson doesn’t ever cook, but for “some odd reason,” he said he asked Teresa to teach him how to cook a cheesecake. He made his first cheesecake the next day and gave it to a coworker. The feedback was unbelievable, Jay said, so he decided to make a cheesecake for every person at Red Mountain Entertainment.

“I made two a day and took them to everybody, and over the course of those two weeks, the feedback was that the cheesecakes were fantastic,” Jay said. “That constant feedback made me realize — hey, let’s start a little business.”

Within the first week of announcing Jay’s Cheesecakes on Facebook in April, Jay had 29 orders. He decided not to keep any of the profits and donate them instead to those in the concert industry affected by the pandemic.

“I was thinking to myself that there area lot of concert support staff who are out of work — runners, production assistants, sound and light people, caterers,” he said. “We were three or four weeks into the pandemic, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Wow, these folks are probably not doing so great. So let’s bake cheesecakes, let’s take all the profit and create a fund.’”

Most of Jay’s orders were from his friends and family at first. Within two weeks, he no longer recognized the customers’ names on the order receipts, and Jay said he realized the word-of-mouth publicity had taken off. He started offering shipping in early August. Within three weeks about 40 cheesecake shipments had been delivered across the country, as far as New York, California, Texas and more.

“Cheesecake was invented 2,500 years ago in ancient Greece, but it was perfected in 2020 in Alabama by Jay,” said one customer, Mike Greisch, who lives in Brooklyn, New York. “The crust could be served as its own dessert. It’s that good!”

Many people have told Jay that their favorite part is the crust, Jay said. The cheesecakes are also rich and fluffy, he said.

Cooking a cheesecake is a fairly tedious process, Jay said. There are two components to the process: the crust and the batter. He mixes graham crackers, salt, sugar and butter to make the crust; he molds this around the pan and bakes the crust in the oven. The batter is made from cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla and lemon zest. He fills the crust mold with the batter and cooks the cheesecake in boiling water for about an hour and a half. After the cheesecake is done cooking, he lets it sit, places it in the fridge, and then he is ready to sell the cheesecake.

“Making the crust is super easy — the batter takes time,” he said. “It’s wet, so it gets a little messier.”

It’s a lengthy process, but Jay said it’s fun.

“This is a way to do something while we’re in a lull in the concert business; otherwise I’d be going crazy,” Jay said. “This is actually an amazing way for me to calm my mind and tap into a part of me that I didn’t realize was ever there.

“The harder you work, the more hours you put into the kitchen, and the more money you give out to people, the more it motivates you. “You want to do more. You want to work harder. You want to give out more money. It’s really satisfying.”

Jay has been able to translate his skills organizing and promoting concerts into making and selling cheesecakes, he said. He runs it like a business, even though he doesn’t keep any of the profits. He and his team keep track of the expenses just like they would settle a concert, he said.

Jay was also able to use some of his connections in the concert industry to bring his concept to fruition. He called his friend Rich Albright back in April and asked for logo help. Within a day, Jay not only had a logo for Jay’s Cheesecakes, but Albright gave him an entire brand guide with fonts, colors, layouts and more. He then asked one of his Red Mountain Entertainment coworkers, Alex Colee, for help putting it all together, and she helped create a Facebook page, Instagram profile and email for the business.

Jay also partnered with A Social Affair, which is located in Edgewood near Gianmarco’s, and now uses their commercial kitchen to cook the cheesecakes.

“You can get a little momentum going,and then somebody jumps on board, and then somebody else jumps on board, and you get more and more wind behind your sails,” he said. “Next thing you know, you’ve got everyone pitching in and helping and not even batting an eye about it.”

He also credits the Homewood community at large and his Hollywood Boulevard neighbors for getting this concept off the ground.

“They all had my back and nudged me along,” he said. “All of these Homewood friends jumped on board in the beginning to get this going, and I think that’s part of the spirit of what this whole thing is about.”

Visit facebook.com/jayscheesecakes for more information, or email jayscheesecakes@gmail.com to place an order. Customers can also visit Saw’s Juke Joint in Mountain Brook to order cheesecake by the slice. Jay said plans are in the works to bring cheesecake by the slice to Homewood.