Cakes by Moraima: How this popular Lebanon City cafe got its start

Moraima Gonzalez, 48, moved from Puerto Rico with her husband and two of their four children to Florida in 2013 shortly after she was diagnosed with kidney failure. After spending several weeks on dialysis and being told from doctors in her home country that she needed a kidney transplant, she wanted a second opinion.

Fortunately for her, that second opinion brought better news, and with the right medicine she has been able to stay healthy since then.

After moving from Florida to New York, Gonzalez and her family settled down in Lebanon in 2017.

Gonzalez worked as a dental hygienist in Puerto Rico, New York and when she moved to Lebanon.

But it would be cakes, not dental hygiene, that would lead her to opening her own business in downtown Lebanon.

Cakes by Moraima & Cafe

"When we moved to Lebanon, I did one cake for my daughter's baby shower. Someone at the party asked if I could do a cake for them, and then another person," she said.

As a little girl living in Puerto Rico, her mother was often working, so she spent a lot of time learning how to bake from her grandmother. She would use what she learned baking for her own children's birthdays and celebrations when they were young, but did it less and less over the years as she worked more.

She started filling cake orders on the weekends as a part-time job while still working as a dental hygienist and in only a year she was ready to open her own space to sell baked goods.

In her search for a physical space to grow her business, she stopped by a storefront for rent at the corner of Cumberland and 5th street. She sat down with the owner and, not having enough to rent out the entire first floor, came to terms that allowed her to rent the space out, minus the full kitchen in the back.

Their original idea was to have a business that exclusively served coffee and cake slices, but because of the size of the space and their ability to use a grill, they added on a food menu, pivoting into a brunch cafe that has since become a go-to spot in downtown Lebanon.

In early July of 2021, Gonzalez opened Cakes by Moraima & Cafe at 443 Cumberland St. with her husband, 47-year-old Carlos Quintana, a retired professional boxer, as the cook and two of their daughters helping out with the business.

Their daughters have since moved on in their careers, and now the business has two employees who help throughout the week.

The space is inviting, with green walls and a relaxed seating arrangement. Photos of family and highlights of Quitana's former career hang along part of the wall, while the windows facing both streets of the intersection provide a view of the commuters, and construction, along Cumberland Street.

Gonzalez said that inviting and comfortable feelings of their cafe is something they've done intentionally, and its effects are not only that customers come back for its charm, but that they stay longer.

"People like it, when they come they say this is like a cozy place. They stay, just talking or maybe reading a book. I feel like, yeah, we decided to give it a special touch. The people say that they love it here, and I can notice that."

Open from Tuesday through Saturday, Gonzalez said that the busiest time of the week is Friday and Saturday.

The breakfast and lunch menus offer a wide range of favorites, both traditional diner foods and Spanish at reasonable prices . Gonzalez explained that the breakfast deluxe — French toast or pancakes with a side of bacon and scrambled eggs with veggies — are their most popular menu items.

In pastries, she said the quesito, a Puerto Rican pastry puff with cream cheese filling and honey glaze, is by far her most popular.

For drinks, they offer much of what a typical cafe would offer in coffee, but they also have pina coladas and frapes.

She explained that while many of her recipes have come from what her grandmother has taught her, she has been able to expand and add her own special touch to them.

Gonzalez said that the most exciting part of opening her business was the impact that it's had on the community around her, describing her customers as a family for them.

"(We're) grateful to God, that he gave us the opportunity to have a place and know people. Some people come just because they want to talk with somebody, or they need a hug, or maybe a word that you can say to them. They change your life."

Core to their business: helping others

Gonzalez explained that both she and her husband had only received their high school diplomas and had the first of four children at a very young age. They both worked hard while raising their children. Their oldest is now 29, while the youngest is now 19. Despite their struggles, it was always a dream of hers to own a business.

Late last year, Gonzalez was featured in the movie "Our Grandmother's Voices," a project by Working to Empower People for Advancement (WEPA), which interviewed several grandmothers living in Central Pa. about different topics and what advice they want the next generation to hear.

Gonzalez discussed those early years of struggle and the importance of following dreams despite those struggles.

"The most important thing is to help people," she said. Iit doesn't matter the situation. You have to be able to help and you have to give."

Recently, Gonzalez produced a video for Visit Lebanon Valley's Java Journey, a self-guided coffee trail of Lebanon County's various coffee shops, in Spanish as way to help the program further reach the Spanish-speaking community.

She said that the video idea came from her observation that very few members of the Spanish-speaking community in Lebanon would participate in the Java Journey, and hope that a video explaining it could help that.

"We had like one or two customers that were Hispanic, and there's a lot of people that come in to try our drinks for the Java Journey."

While Cakes by Moraima would normally participate on the Java Journey, she explained that they made the decision to not because she suffered a stroke in August while giving a baking class, and believed the additional business that the Java Journey brings into the cafe could be bad for her health.

She has also has stopped filling cake orders for the time being.

She hopes that next year she will be able to once again join the Java Journey.

Daniel Larlham Jr. is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at DLarlham@LDNews.com or on X @djlarlham.

This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: Here's how Cakes by Moraima, a Lebanon City Cafe, got its start