Sugar and spice and every thing nice, and — oh yeah, lots of carrots go into Lloyd's Carrot Cakes.
"So all his friends would come to the house and they would watch the Knicks, they would be like, ‘Lloyd, bake a cake,’” explained Lloyd Adams' daughter, Lilka Adams. “That's really when the seed was planted that he had some good cake and other people should have it too."
Lloyd's Carrot Cake is a staple in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx.
The little store opened back in 1986 on Broadway across from Van Cortlandt Park. The initial wholesale business model was to sell cakes to restaurants.
"The kick here is that people would pass by and be like, ‘What is that smell?’ And they were like, ‘Can I buy one?’ and that's how the retail portion of the business was born," said Adams.
Lloyd and his wife Betty have passed away, but the family's small business is still going strong with their daughter, Lilka and son, Brandon Adams.
Each medium-sized cake has about five cups of carrots.
"The thing with Lloyd's Carrot Cake is that there is a very rich golden brown to it," said Adams.
During the holidays, people who love the golden brown cake stand in line, sometimes for hours.
Thanksgiving week is the busiest time, according to Adams.
"This past Thanksgiving we baked and sold over 1,500 cakes in those days, which is probably an historic benchmark for Lloyd's Carrot," said Adams.
"When we are getting to the holidays we're cutting about 500 to 700 hundred pounds of carrots a day. That's a lot of damn carrots."
Ruth Bailey has worked and baked at Lloyd's for 26 years and Santos Perez has been here 16 years.
They're like family and are a big part of these tasty cakes.
In addition to the Bronx, Loyd's has a second location in East Harlem.
The signature cream cheese frosting is a fan favorite as well.