Brewerytown Gets a Sweet Addition: New June Bakery
Noelle Blizzard has finally found a brick-and-mortar home for her nationally celebrated vintage cakes.
Vintage-inspired cakes from New June Bakery / Photography by Michael Persico
Once upon a time, Noelle Blizzard worked in marketing. She did PR, advertising, and social media and worked for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society — all the things one does in this modern world after majoring in English and creative writing in college and realizing that the best market for words these days is in using them to sell other people’s stuff.
But if you’re feeling a little worn down this Monday morning and looking for a little inspiration or proof that any life can have a pretty sweet second act, dig this: Blizzard did 10 years at a desk writing copy. Ten years of client emails, meetings, and Instagram posts. And then, as it did for all of us, the pandemic hit.
She had a husband, two (very) young kids at home, and she needed … something. Something to make the days pass, the hours not just all turn into a blur. Knitting, doomscrolling, close-up magic — none of that was really her thing. But she remembered growing up in Las Vegas, where her grandparents (ex-cruise-ship cooks) ran a deli, and her mom used to spend the holidays baking cookies for the neighbors — so she thought baking might do the trick. A little pandemic therapy. Something to keep her mind occupied.
So she started reading cookbooks. She devoured YouTube videos and online tutorials. She baked to raise money for charity, found she had a knack for it, and started baking even more.
She found herself spending more time in the kitchen than at her desk, so she walked away from marketing. When she discovered cakes, she found her obsession and her voice: gorgeous, colorful, “vintage Victorian”-style classics dressed in pastels and garlanded with detail.
A variety of sweet treats from New June Bakery
She worked out of her own kitchen for a year, then moved to a commissary space in 2021. She filled orders (and Instagram) with elaborately decorated cakes and pop-up announcements, and was featured in the New York Times, Food & Wine, and Architectural Digest. StarChefs named her a “Rising Star” in 2024, and we gave her a Best of Philly award the year before. Not only that, but we had Blizzard cook and style the cake that graced the cover of our 50th anniversary Best of Philly issue just a couple of months ago.
And now, Blizzard and her New June Bakery are officially making the jump. Her first real brick-and-mortar location was announced a few months back, but now we can tell you that the new New June will be opening in Brewerytown, at 2623 West Girard Avenue, this Saturday, December 7th.
Which is huge, right? I mean, LOTS of us found new pandemic hobbies. A few of us even turned these into small-time side hustles to make a few bucks along the way. But how many people do you know who took their side gig all the way to Good Morning America? Yeah, not many.
Inside New June Bakery
But Blizzard did. And along the way she has developed a unique style that people really dig.
The new shop will feature her complex, fruit-forward cakes as full-size desserts, four-inch mini cakes, and by the slice. She’s rocking both her classics (cardamom pistachio cream, vanilla sprinkle, French chocolate devils food, lemon-raspberry jam, brown butter fennel cake, and more) and some seasonal flavors (currently: olive oil pumpkin chocolate chip, peanut butter and strawberry-rhubarb jam, spiced pear pie shortcake). Plus, she is going to be doing retail hours on Fridays and Saturdays, selling slices, breakfast cakes, cookies, and pies to the masses.
And the “menu” — for lack of a better term — is bonkers: banana tea cakes with salted caramel and tahini cream cheese frosting, Krispie cornflake marshmallow cookies, homemade candy cakes with chocolate ganache, caramelized honey pumpkin pie, carrot cake cheesecake, and just dozens of other things.
“Opening New June’s first storefront is a return to my neighborhood, where it all began,” Blizzard says, “baking for my friends and neighbors, contributing to a special sense of shared community, with the joy only a delicious sweet treat from your tiny local bakery can offer. From day one, New June was developed with the guiding thought: ‘If I ever had a bakery, what would I want to see on the menu?, and then: ‘If there was ever a bakery in my neighborhood, what would I most want it to offer?’… And that’s what we’ll be.”
New June will be open to walk-in customers on Fridays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. You can check out the menu, hours, and other details right here — plus make orders for local delivery and pickup. Looking for a custom cake? This is your spot. And wedding cakes can be found right here.
