Leap Day Birthday: Ashley Bakery Turns 24

has weathered many storms, sometimes literally, over its 24 years in business.

Owners Eileen and Bernie Ferri bought the business, formerly known as Ashley South Windemere Bakery, in February on 1988. Seven months later Hurricane Hugo devastated Charleston as a category 4 storm.

"It was horrible," Eileen Ferri said. "No one was up and running for weeks."

The Ferris got through the Hugo slump thanks to "very good business interruption insurance" that helped the couple cover their overhead costs until they could re-open, Ferri said.

"When people talk about tough economic times, sure things are rough now, but I think back on all the problems we've had over the years, and things now really aren't that bad," she said.

After a few years the Ferris moved their business from its former South Windemere location, where now operates, to their current digs on Savannah Highway. The bakery has been there for 19 years now.

About 14 years ago, when the Ferris' oldest Daughter Hayden Campbell returned to the Bakery after college, the Ferris decided to diversify their business, putting Campbell's fine arts degree from Winthrop University to work creating and decorating cakes for specialty occasions. Before 1998 Ashley Bakery was almost exclusively a wholesale bakery, supplying restaurants daily with loaves of bread and pastries.

The wholesale component still accounts for approximately two-thirds of its business, Ferri said, but the specialty cakes now make up the other third. And Ashley Bakery can create almost anything a customer can dream up in all its iced glory.

"We do a lot of first birthday cakes," Ferri said. "That's a big deal, people go all out on those."

Ashley Bakery even offers customers a free six-inch smash cake when they order a first birthday cake, so the family can get a photo of the birthday boy or girl enjoying their cake and everyone else can still get a piece without a hand-print in it, Ferri said.

Wedding cakes are also a huge part of the bakery's specialty cake business, and during wedding season, March through June and again in October, Ashley Bakery is usually booked a year in advance, and produces up to eight or nine cakes each weekend.

"We do a lot of grooms cakes too," Ferri said.

With two generations of Ferris working in the bakery, and members of the next generation already running around in the business after school, Ashley Bakery is truly a family enterprise, and Eileen Ferri is happy to be able to hand the business down to her children. Another of Ferris' daughters, Alicia Faia, also works in the business.

And the employees in the bakery are like family too, Ferri said. One of them has been with Ashley Bakery the entire time the Ferris have owned it, and most of the others have been with the company nine or more years.

Ferri said her business has built its reputation in the Charleston community on the back of it's quality baked goods and the word of mouth recommendations of satisfied customers.

"When people come in to order something, so many of them say 'I was at a party and had one of your cakes, that's why I'm here,'" Ferri said. "It's taken a lot of hard work to get to this point."

Much of that hard work is paying attention to small details.

"I don't think the average person realizes how much baking is an exact science," she said. "If you don't follow the recipe exactly there is no saving it, there is no going back."

And while Ferri enjoys watching all the baking competition and reality shows on television these days, she said they can give customers a shock when they ask the bakery to recreate something from Ace of Cakes.

"When you tell them the cost of doing something like that it takes them back a bit," Ferry said. "The people on Ace of Cakes don't do anything for less than $1,000."

"Most of the cost is from the labor," she added.

The Ferris also use the business to contribute to worthy community programs, including working with the Disabilities Board of Charleston as a training facility to help Charleston area adults with disabilities develop work skills. One of the men who went through that program has been working at Ashley Bakery for eight years now, Ferri said.

Looking ahead to the next 24 years, Ferri said, "I'm hoping we continue to grow in the future and maintain our quality and good reputation."