By the time Patrice sets down a fresh tub of icing, the room already feels lighter. She’s quick to laugh, quick to connect, and somehow makes you feel like you’ve been friends for years, even if you just met.
“I started it because I wanted friends,” she says with a grin, smoothing pink buttercream along the side of a cake. And it’s true. Open Pantry, her cake-decorating workshop series, didn’t begin as a business plan. It began as an act of connection and a way to bring people together at a time when so many felt apart.
In a city where it can be hard to break the ice, Patrice has created a space that feels easy. Warm. Playful. Like stepping into a gathering you didn’t know you needed.
A place where cake becomes the excuse, but community becomes the reason you stay.
The Spark That Started It
Patrice’s journey started during COVID, in the quiet moments between big decisions. She was selling bento cakes on Marketplace, trying to figure out where life was leading, and wondering whether the path she was on truly aligned with who she wanted to be.
Then came the nudge she needed, from her best friend Kelsey.
“Why don’t you do workshops?” Kelsey had said. “You’ve got the skill and the personality for it.”
Patrice didn’t overthink it. She just said yes. And with that yes, something shifted.
“I love making cakes,” she says. “But I also really love meeting people.” Workshops became the perfect blend: creativity, connection, and just enough chaos to make each class memorable.
Building a Space That Feels Like Belonging
What makes Patrice’s workshops special isn’t the icing technique or the perfect crumb. It’s the atmosphere. Inside an Open Pantry session, people loosen up. They laugh at their wobbling buttercream edges. They compare sprinkles. They lean over each other’s cakes, offering encouragement, advice, and sometimes… more icing.
“It’s not just about taking home a cake,” Patrice explains. “About 40–60% of people come to meet new friends.”
Her early workshops taught her that community can’t be forced, it has to be allowed.
“At first, I tried to do everything for the participants,” she says. “But I realized that when you let people move around and grab things themselves, they naturally start talking. Those little moments matter.”
It’s a philosophy that shapes every detail of Open Pantry: gentle structure, space to play, and the invitation to be social without pressure.
The Joy of Imperfect Beginnings
Patrice loves watching people surprise themselves. She tells me stories of participants who insist they “can’t decorate at all” and then create cakes that look like they belong in a bakery window.
There were the two friends who arrived in full cosplay on Halloween and piped an anime character so detailed she had to double-take. Or the woman who created a full koi pond with ripples, movement, and 3D fish made entirely from icing.
“I was like, wow. You could sell this,” she laughs. “Moments like that stick with me.”
Her favourite memories are often the ones where people realize they’re capable of more than they thought; that creativity belongs to them too.
A Playlist Mishap Worth Remembering
Every great creative journey comes with a moment of chaos.
For Patrice, it was the playlist.
“My first class, I didn’t have a playlist ready,” she says. “So I searched ‘cake playlist’ on Spotify… and hardcore death metal started blasting.”
Everyone froze. Patrice scrambled. And now the story lives on as a reminder that sometimes your beginnings are messy, and that’s okay.
“Honestly,” she says, “if someone requested death metal now, I’d say sure.”
What She Hopes to Build
When Patrice talks about the future, she lights up.
She dreams of creating a community where people feel comfortable being open, whether that’s trying a hobby for the first time, meeting new people, or showing up exactly as they are.
“It’s a win when I see someone become more themselves,” she says. “I hope that feeling carries with them, even after the workshop ends.”
More collaborations, more shared experiences, more spaces where creativity spreads from one person to the next. That’s where Open Pantry is headed.
And through Hobby Hop, she’s experiencing the other side too. Not just as a facilitator, but as a participant discovering new skills and new communities for herself.
Why It Matters
Cake decorating is charmingly simple with icing, sprinkles, laughter… but Patrice turns it into something deeper.
It becomes a way to celebrate trying. A reason to gather. A reminder that creativity doesn’t need to be perfect to be joyful.
Because at Open Pantry, everyone is invited to play. And, more importantly, everyone is invited to belong.
🎟️ Try a Workshop at Open Pantry
Open Pantry is part of our Hobby Hop lineup: a city-wide celebration of creativity and connection. Join Patrice for one of her upcoming workshops and experience her warm, welcoming style firsthand.
You may come for the cake. But chances are, you’ll leave with a new friend too.
