The shop is taking over 3 N. 17th St. from Cafe Beignet, which closed earlier this year. (Photo by Charlotte Matherly)
A Shockoe Bottom restaurant space is getting reheated by yet another sweet tenant.
First-time business owner Erin Kennedy next month plans to open OMG OCPs, a bakery specializing exclusively in oatmeal cream pies, at 3 N. 17th St. near the 17th Street Market.
It’ll replace the short-lived Cafe Beignet RVA, which opened last year in place of pizza joint Carmela’s.
“I really believe that this could be a new dessert concept,” Kennedy said of her new shop. “You have a lot of places that have an oatmeal cream pie, but this is kind of the first of its kind, where it’s about oatmeal cream pies and it’s about elevating those specifically.”
As Kennedy tells it, the stars aligned for her to make a business out of selling her oatmeal cream pies a little over a year ago.
Erin Kennedy
Inspired by a love of Little Debbie snacks she once shared with her uncle, David, Kennedy decided to try to make oatmeal cream pies for a potluck event several years ago. She had no baking skills, she said, and the first batch took six hours to make.
She’s since honed the recipe and often made them for friends, who she said asked her to share the recipe or sell them, but she never really considered it until November 2021. She’d recently left a job at a nonprofit, and when she asked her peers on Facebook if they’d actually buy the cream pies, she received an overwhelming “yes” that pushed her to start the business.
“Somehow I’m here and it’s really working out well,” Kennedy said. “Things have really fallen into place with this business truly since day one.”
By February 2022, she had her own company and has been baking and selling the oatmeal cream pies from her home for over a year. This May she decided she’d need a bigger space to continue growth.
“There’s no option for it to grow. It can’t just stay in this spot,” Kennedy remembers thinking. “So, let’s do this. It’s either stay or jump, and so, yeah, I jumped.”
Kennedy bakes 400 oatmeal cream pies, or 800 cookies, every week. This is about all her current kitchen – with a 4.5-quart mixer, her home oven and a 9-cubic-foot freezer – can accommodate. The new store will exponentially increase her production capacity, she said, with a 50-quart mixer, two commercial ovens and two walk-in freezers.
The creampies will sell for $4.25 plus tax. Cream pies by the dozen, which Kennedy sells online, run anywhere between $28 and $50, depending on flavor, variety and size. (Photos courtesy OMG OCP)
Kennedy wants OMG OCPs to operate like a doughnut shop, where customers can walk in and grab one oatmeal cream pie or a dozen. She’ll have about 15 flavors on a weekly basis, with 10 on the standard menu and others rotating out. Flavors include “the OG,” cinnamon chip, chocolate-dipped, oatmeal raisin, mint chip, peanut butter and more. Some flavors will be available gluten-free, and Kennedy said she’s working on a vegan option.
One oatmeal cream pie starts at $4.25 plus tax. Cream pies by the dozen, which Kennedy sells online, run anywhere between $28 and $50, depending on flavor, variety and size. Gluten-free options cost more.
She’ll also serve nitro cold brew – supplied by Bugle Call Coffee, a roaster in New Kent – including an oatmeal cream pie-flavored brew alongside kombucha and other drinks.
The OMG OCPs name is an acronym of what she said she hears from people when they take their first bite of her oatmeal cream pies: “Oh, my god.”
“Everyone always, always says, ‘Oh, my god.’ As soon as they taste them, ‘Oh, my God,’” Kennedy said. “I would always say … ‘OMG, I’m making my OCPs again’ when I would tell people.”
The store also will boost wholesale production, Kennedy said. She currently sells the desserts to Union Market, Shields Market, Outpost Richmond and a couple spots in Hanover, and she said she hopes that wholesale will be 40 percent of her business with the new shop.
Flavors include “the OG,” cinnamon chip, chocolate-dipped, oatmeal raisin, mint chip, peanut butter and more.
While OMG OCPs is and always has been just her, Kennedy said she’ll look to hire a team of four or five people to work at the bakery.
To honor her late Uncle David, who Kennedy said had a developmental disability, she’s working with local nonprofit SOAR365 to hire people with disabilities. After working in refugee resettlement during her time abroad with a nonprofit, she’s also looking to partner with another nonprofit, ReEstablish Richmond, to provide employment opportunities for refugees.
She got the keys to her new space in late July and said it was “pretty turnkey.” She said she hopes to complete minor changes and decorate the place by the end of August so she can get in and get baking.
By the time she opens, Kennedy estimated she’ll have spent between $15,000 and $20,000 on the jump to brick-and-mortar. She financed it all herself, in part from a sizable delayed pandemic unemployment payment – another thing that just fell into place, she said – and in part with small business credit cards to front the expense. Her current sales are also being put toward the new business costs.
As much as she didn’t plan her entrance to the oatmeal cream pie business, Kennedy said she’s in it to stay. In two years, she said, she hopes to be at a point to open a second OMG OCPs location. In the long term, she’s looking at franchising the business.
“The timing of everything has really been beautiful,” Kennedy said. “It’s really been something that, in every even tiny detail, that it’s hard to say that this is not meant to be.”
The shop is taking over 3 N. 17th St. from Cafe Beignet, which closed earlier this year. (Photo by Charlotte Matherly)
A Shockoe Bottom restaurant space is getting reheated by yet another sweet tenant.
First-time business owner Erin Kennedy next month plans to open OMG OCPs, a bakery specializing exclusively in oatmeal cream pies, at 3 N. 17th St. near the 17th Street Market.
It’ll replace the short-lived Cafe Beignet RVA, which opened last year in place of pizza joint Carmela’s.
“I really believe that this could be a new dessert concept,” Kennedy said of her new shop. “You have a lot of places that have an oatmeal cream pie, but this is kind of the first of its kind, where it’s about oatmeal cream pies and it’s about elevating those specifically.”
As Kennedy tells it, the stars aligned for her to make a business out of selling her oatmeal cream pies a little over a year ago.
Erin Kennedy
Inspired by a love of Little Debbie snacks she once shared with her uncle, David, Kennedy decided to try to make oatmeal cream pies for a potluck event several years ago. She had no baking skills, she said, and the first batch took six hours to make.
She’s since honed the recipe and often made them for friends, who she said asked her to share the recipe or sell them, but she never really considered it until November 2021. She’d recently left a job at a nonprofit, and when she asked her peers on Facebook if they’d actually buy the cream pies, she received an overwhelming “yes” that pushed her to start the business.
“Somehow I’m here and it’s really working out well,” Kennedy said. “Things have really fallen into place with this business truly since day one.”
By February 2022, she had her own company and has been baking and selling the oatmeal cream pies from her home for over a year. This May she decided she’d need a bigger space to continue growth.
“There’s no option for it to grow. It can’t just stay in this spot,” Kennedy remembers thinking. “So, let’s do this. It’s either stay or jump, and so, yeah, I jumped.”
Kennedy bakes 400 oatmeal cream pies, or 800 cookies, every week. This is about all her current kitchen – with a 4.5-quart mixer, her home oven and a 9-cubic-foot freezer – can accommodate. The new store will exponentially increase her production capacity, she said, with a 50-quart mixer, two commercial ovens and two walk-in freezers.
The creampies will sell for $4.25 plus tax. Cream pies by the dozen, which Kennedy sells online, run anywhere between $28 and $50, depending on flavor, variety and size. (Photos courtesy OMG OCP)
Kennedy wants OMG OCPs to operate like a doughnut shop, where customers can walk in and grab one oatmeal cream pie or a dozen. She’ll have about 15 flavors on a weekly basis, with 10 on the standard menu and others rotating out. Flavors include “the OG,” cinnamon chip, chocolate-dipped, oatmeal raisin, mint chip, peanut butter and more. Some flavors will be available gluten-free, and Kennedy said she’s working on a vegan option.
One oatmeal cream pie starts at $4.25 plus tax. Cream pies by the dozen, which Kennedy sells online, run anywhere between $28 and $50, depending on flavor, variety and size. Gluten-free options cost more.
She’ll also serve nitro cold brew – supplied by Bugle Call Coffee, a roaster in New Kent – including an oatmeal cream pie-flavored brew alongside kombucha and other drinks.
The OMG OCPs name is an acronym of what she said she hears from people when they take their first bite of her oatmeal cream pies: “Oh, my god.”
“Everyone always, always says, ‘Oh, my god.’ As soon as they taste them, ‘Oh, my God,’” Kennedy said. “I would always say … ‘OMG, I’m making my OCPs again’ when I would tell people.”
The store also will boost wholesale production, Kennedy said. She currently sells the desserts to Union Market, Shields Market, Outpost Richmond and a couple spots in Hanover, and she said she hopes that wholesale will be 40 percent of her business with the new shop.
Flavors include “the OG,” cinnamon chip, chocolate-dipped, oatmeal raisin, mint chip, peanut butter and more.
While OMG OCPs is and always has been just her, Kennedy said she’ll look to hire a team of four or five people to work at the bakery.
To honor her late Uncle David, who Kennedy said had a developmental disability, she’s working with local nonprofit SOAR365 to hire people with disabilities. After working in refugee resettlement during her time abroad with a nonprofit, she’s also looking to partner with another nonprofit, ReEstablish Richmond, to provide employment opportunities for refugees.
She got the keys to her new space in late July and said it was “pretty turnkey.” She said she hopes to complete minor changes and decorate the place by the end of August so she can get in and get baking.
By the time she opens, Kennedy estimated she’ll have spent between $15,000 and $20,000 on the jump to brick-and-mortar. She financed it all herself, in part from a sizable delayed pandemic unemployment payment – another thing that just fell into place, she said – and in part with small business credit cards to front the expense. Her current sales are also being put toward the new business costs.
As much as she didn’t plan her entrance to the oatmeal cream pie business, Kennedy said she’s in it to stay. In two years, she said, she hopes to be at a point to open a second OMG OCPs location. In the long term, she’s looking at franchising the business.
“The timing of everything has really been beautiful,” Kennedy said. “It’s really been something that, in every even tiny detail, that it’s hard to say that this is not meant to be.”
As a lover of OMP and a “day trader” in middle school of Little Debbie snacks I am sure they are amazing and I will try it once but up to $50 for a dozen. And in the Bottom. I mean maybe on Strawberry St, or Robinson, or even near Carytown where you have more foot traffic but Shockoe Bottom. Or tried teaming with say Wisk or another bakery spot to sell them before opening a storefront. Best of luck!