Jack Leach, an autistic nonverbal 20-year-old resident of Oconee County, has entered the scene in the last few years with a full-time business he owns with his father, Brent.
Jack’s first cheesecake he ever made was when he was 14. He always loved cooking with his grandmother, but the cheesecake was different. So different, in fact, Jack convinced his grandmother to buy him his own cheesecake pans. He started making so many, they had to start giving them to his classmates at Oconee High School. Then his teacher began to take interest, asking if Jack could make one for her to take home. This was when the business began.
The Leachs started selling Jack’s homemade cheesecakes on Facebook in 2019, and at the urging of Jack’s high school chorus teacher, the Leachs decided to enter the cakes into the “Taste of Oconee” competition in 2020. Not only did they win Best Dessert that year, Jack’s Cheesecake has won the award every year since. For five years in a row, he has beaten full-sized restaurants with trained chefs.
When Jack won the first time, Channel 2 Action News got wind of the story and ran it for a week straight, and Brent’s phone was “blowing off the hook.”
“We never said if we would deliver, where we would deliver to, or anything like that. We started getting orders as far away as Atlanta. So we would bake up all the cheesecakes from these orders, put them in a cooler, and in the middle of the night we’d loop around I-285 and drop people’s cheesecakes off at their doorstep” – Brent Leach, co-owner of Jack’s Cheesecake
Jack’s Cheesecake makes use of two locations, one in Bishop on Highway 441, and another in the Georgia Square Mall on Atlanta Highway. They also have a pull-behind trailer to deliver and make his desserts. The Leachs have cut down on the range of the deliveries they had to make five years ago as well, delivering only to Clarke, Barrow and Oconee Counties.
Jack’s Cheesecake has also gone wholesale, spreading their desserts to retailers like Striplings General Store, four locations of B&T’s Food Fresh Markets, Akademia Brewing, Local 706, Fully Loaded Pizza, Tipsy Turtle Bar and Grill and others coming soon.
Residents of Clarke, Barrow and Oconee can be on the lookout for a trailer with Jack’s Cheesecake emblazoned on the side. The company plans to be at farmers’ markets, neighborhood popups and community events around the area.
