Legendary downtown shop keeps NYC in cheesecakes

Just as Philly natives deservedly brag about their sizzling, world-famous cheese steaks and Chicago claims some of the country's best slices of deep-dish pepperoni pizza, so too does Gotham rightfully boasts about its sweet, melt-in-your-mouth cheesecakes.

And some would say that no New York baker whips up a better batter of cheesecake than Eileen Avezzano, owner of the legendary Eileen's Special Cheesecake.

For 30 years, New Yorkers and guests to the city have taken the subway downtown to Eileen's Special Cheesecake, located at 17 Cleveland Place, at the corner of Kenmare and Centre Streets. Baking more than 500 cheesecakes every week, in flavors ranging from banana to chocolate, peanut butter to rocky road, the bakery caters to some of the most discriminating cheesecake aficionados around and serves more than 70 restaurants and gourmet shops here in the city.

A caseful of goodies tempt all who enter

What differentiates her cheesecakes from competitors, Avezzano says, is the careful, hands-on way in which each cake is prepared. While ingredients in all cheesecakes are largely the same -- cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, vanilla, and lemon juice -- the quality of the ingredients and the way in which the cakes are baked places Avezzano's creations a slice above the rest.

The bakers at the downtown shop use fresh, all natural ingredients. There are no additives or preservatives in the batter. And the cakes, which take about 90 minutes to prepare, are baked in boiling water baths. The result of all this painstakingly hard work is a creamy and rich but also very subtle, fluffy dessert.

"Throughout the years, even with all the companies that have now started to do cheesecakes, real New Yorkers still like the real thing," Avezzano says. "Also, I think the younger generation doesn't really want that heavy, thick, cream cheese feel. That's why ours is popular. It's light and airy because of the way we fold the ingredients in."

Eileen with her husband, Al, outside the store

"I was saddened by my mom's death and I just wanted to keep a connection to her," Avezzano says. "So I started making cheesecakes."

Armed with her mother's personal recipe, Avezzano began baking the velvety desserts just for herself and her family. That changed when a local deli owner asked her to bake one of her sweet cakes for his store.

"That afternoon, I got a phone call from him, and he said that he had sold out the cake at lunchtime," Avezzano says. "He wanted me to make three more."

Avezzano was soon baking more than 15 cheesecakes a week for the deli owner. She prepared and baked the desserts from her own small kitchen oven, which held just four cakes at a time.  

"The baking gave me the dollars that I needed because I had two young children," Avezzano says. "It also was the best cure for my mourning period for my mom."

For the next two years, Avezzano baked from her home, selling cheesecakes to all kinds of restaurants and eateries in Queens. Emboldened by her success, Avezzano began baking from the sub-basements of restaurants here in the city, using larger ovens to meet an increasingly long list of dessert orders. Then, in December 1976, she opened her own shop on Cleveland Place, drawn to the downtown neighborhood for its low rent.

"It was like a ghost town," Avezzano says of the area at that time. "There were no restaurants. There was nothing here."

Very quickly, though, people began knocking on the bakery's door. From outside on the downtown street, New Yorkers smelled the fruit-topped cakes. Avezzano, who had previously concentrated exclusively on wholesale orders to restaurants, decided to shift her fledging business to also include individual customers.

"I realized that we were here anyway so I decided to partition off the front part of the store, buy a used bakery case, and open for retail," she says. "And people started finding us."

Today, 30 years later, Eileen's Special Cheesecake has evolved into a legendary New York destination spot, maturing and growing just like the downtown neighborhood that it calls home.

"We now have some of the nicest shops and restaurants," Avezzano says of downtown New York. "People just want to be here. Downtown gives you the real flavor of the city. I didn't expect to see that kind of transformation happen in my lifetime."

The fruit-topped cakes give plenty to smile about

The Lower Manhattan bakery delivers its desserts day and night to sweet-toothed New Yorkers and also ships cheesecakes throughout the country. Most of the orders, Avezzano says, are from Californians and Floridians.

"There are more displaced New Yorkers in those places," she says. "They miss the things they're used to."

To order a cheesecake from Eileen's Special Cheesecake, call (212) 966-5585, or 1-800-521-CAKE (outside NY), or visit www.eileenscheesecake.com.

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