Cake Fest Roc Is Back at Highland Park — Rochester's Most Joyful Community Tradition

Cake Fest Roc is back. The festival that turned Highland Park into a gathering place for Rochester's bakers and neighbors returns for its second year — same premise, same park, same invitation: show up with cake, share it, meet your city.

What Is Cake Fest Roc?

What Is Cake Fest Roc?

The concept is simple. Community members bring their best cakes and desserts to Highland Park, set them out, and share. Professional bakers. Home kitchen regulars. First-timers who've never entered a competition. All of it is welcome. This is not a competition — there are no judges, no rankings. The point is participation.

That framing matters. Lorraine Toland of Rooted Creative Co. put it plainly to the Rochester Beacon: "There's just something really joyful about gathering around cake." Now in its second year at Highland Park, the festival is carving out its own place among Rochester's seasonal traditions.

Two Rochester Creatives at the Center of It

Two Rochester Creatives at the Center of It

Lorraine Toland of Rooted Creative Co. and Champagne Manley of Cakedd By Champ are two Rochester-based creatives at the center of Cake Fest Roc's story. Manley's framing of the event cuts to the core of it. "It's truly such a beautiful time where we all just come together as a community during times when we desperately need some goodness," she told the Beacon. Their shared instinct — that a shared dessert table can do something a panel discussion can't — is the organizing logic of the whole thing.

How to Join Cake Fest Roc at Highland Park

How to Join Cake Fest Roc at Highland Park

The festival is open to anyone who wants to bring a cake and to anyone who just wants to show up and eat one. Skill level doesn't enter into it. Follow Cakedd By Champ and Rooted Creative Co. on social media for the exact date, time, and any registration details as the event approaches.

Where Cake Fest Fits in Rochester's Festival Culture

Where Cake Fest Fits in Rochester's Festival Culture

Rochester runs on its festivals. The Lilac Festival fills Highland Park — the same park — every May. Rochester International Jazz Festival anchors a week every June. Fringe Festival takes over the city each September. As the Rochester Beacon notes, the city has an established festival culture spanning lilacs in spring, jazz, and Fringe in the fall.

Cake Fest Roc is different in scale — smaller, newer, grassroots — but it's reaching for the same thing those festivals do at their best: a reason for strangers to stand next to each other. The second year is where a new festival either finds its footing or fades.

Why the Second Year Counts

Why the Second Year Counts

Most new events don't make it to year two. The ones that do are usually the ones that filled a real need — not a market gap, but a social one. Cake Fest Roc's answer is concrete: bring food, share it, belong somewhere for an afternoon.

Manley's line about "times when we desperately need some goodness" is not rhetorical filler. Rochester in late summer already knows how to gather outdoors. Cake Fest is one more way to do it — at Highland Park, no ticket required, no score being kept.

Watch Rooted Creative Co. for updates on this year's date and registration.