New Wichita dessert shop offering ice cream, cheesecake, cannoli, is now open
XO Desserts owner Jack Feist now realizes he may have underestimated Wichita’s collective sweet tooth.
On Tuesday afternoon, he shared on his new dessert shop’s new Facebook page that he’d officially opened at 548 S. Oliver, figuring that only a few people would see it and that they’d trickle in and give his staff some practice.
But the Facebook post blew up, he said. It was shared more than 300 times and got around 50,000 “impressions.”
Now, he’s a little worried about what to expect when he opens the doors at 4 p.m. today.
“I imagine tonight, I’m going to be pretty busy,” Feist said.
Feist, who works as a salesperson with restaurant supplier Ben E. Keith and for the past three years has been selling his homemade cheesecakes as a side gig through his business EXTRAordinary Cheesecakes, announced in August that he was taking over the old Churn & Burn space on Oliver just off Kellogg to open a new dessert shop. (Previously, he’d been making his cheesecakes in a commercial kitchen then selling them to individuals and restaurants.)
He’s named it XO Desserts, and he’s serving the same gluten-free cheesecakes he’s become known for. But that’s not all the new shop sells. It also has a big assortment of house-made ice cream, shakes, coffee drinks and cannoli as well as individual-sized cheesecakes in flavors like pumpkin, chocolate chip, tiramisu, white chocolate raspberry and candy corn.
He’s offering gluten-free versions of all his dessert items, and as time goes on, Feist said, he plans to serve other upscale pastries such as Napoleons and lobster tales
People can get their desserts to go or stay and enjoy them at tables and chairs he has set up in the space.
XO Desserts will be closed on Thursday, which is Halloween, then will start its normal business hours: 4 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays; 4 to 10 p.m. Fridays; 2 to 10 p.m. Saturdays; and 2 to 9 p.m. on Sundays.
Feist is asking people to be patient during his first few days of business.
“We may run out of products, but we are trying to be proactive,” he said. “And we are still training employees.”
Though he started off making his cheesecakes out of the commercial kitchen at Lotus Leaf, the now-closed restaurant that operated at 251 N. Washington, Feist had moved into the kitchen at Roxy’s Downtown, the theater at 412 1/2 E. Douglas. But Roxy’s was getting busier and busier, and he was having to fight for time in the kitchen.
Feist’s father was from New York, and his parents were very picky about their cheesecake. They firmly believed that Junior’s Cheesecake out of Brooklyn was the best and that none other really compared. Feist tended to agree. During the early days of the pandemic in 2020, Feist got a hankering for cheesecake but couldn’t find the kind he liked. So he started experimenting at home with recipes, trying to replicate what he loved so much about Junior’s Cheesecake.
Once he did, he started selling his creations to individuals and also to restaurants, who would add his cheesecakes to their menus. Among the restaurants that carry Feist’s cheesecakes: Albero Bistro, Bronx Pizza & Pints and Napoli Italian Eatery.
XO Desserts
This story was originally published October 30, 2024 at 2:45 PM.
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