Meet Soaked Bar
đUnion City, New Jersey đ hotplate.com/soakedbar
Tres Leches is a Latin American classic: sponge cake soaked in three types of milk until unbelievably moist and tender. The sponge has to be at the right texture and temperature to absorb the milk, and the cake-to-liquid ratio must be dialed in to avoid collapsing or dry spots.
Imagine controlling these variables across hundreds of individual orders. Now imagine attempting that in your apartment kitchen.
This was the test for Will and Michael when their home-based tres leches business Soaked Bar blew up thanks to customer word-of-mouth and social media.
Influencers began posting videos unboxing and tasting the cakes. Neatly decorated flights, crisp white packaging, their vibrant red and pink âSB,â and wide-eyed reactions led to a frenzy. Suddenly, everyone needed to get their hands on one of these secret boxes.
As his following took off, Will urgently needed a system to manage inventory, process payments, and save time. In October 2024, Will took orders out of DMs and into drops on Hotplate that began selling out in seconds.
He frequently tweaked his recipe and bake times to maintain quality as volume increased. The video below shows the behind-the-scenes of baking hundreds of cakes from one apartment oven.
âWe went from baking 8 cakes every 35 minutes to now pushing 24 in that same timeframe, & burning our hands from time to time. Baking is a science, if I dump all the cakes in the oven at once, they wonât bake evenly. If the recipe isnât right, the quality wonât be the same either, and I refuse to sacrifice quality.â
Will and Michael have since fully graduated from their apartment kitchen and into a commercial kitchen in Union City, giving them access to bigger ovens and fridges and allowing them to better streamline their production schedule. Itâs a huge milestone but weâll never forget where it all started. No really - we havenât stopped thinking about that milk fridge since we posted this video.
Soaked Bar has stayed true to its roots. Rather than trying to blindly pump out as many cakes as possible, Will has stuck with preorders and limited flavor drops. This keeps each batch intentional and gives customers a reason to keep coming back to see whatâs new. Seasonal specials keep things exciting while his signature lineup (classic, biscoff, oreo, pistachio, dulce de leche, lemon) holds its ground.
You can feel how much community support fuels Willâs business. Customers donât just enjoy the cakes - they post videos, leave reviews, and aggressively tag their friends when a giveaway is announced. This organic buzz turned Soaked Bar from a side hustle into a brand with a fiery following. Itâs also a reminder that authenticity matters. People want to know the story behind what theyâre eating and who they are supporting.
Soaked Bar is proof that you donât need a storefront or a team of investors to create something people love. You need a great product, the persistence to perfect it, and the courage to just start.
