Georgetown's Getting a New Cake Shop and Grocery Store

The owner behind the gorgeous, modern Deep Sea Sugar & Salt cakes is taking over the Carleton Avenue Grocery.

By Chelsea Lin August 21, 2017

How does that saying go, leap and your cake will appear? After finding, by happenstance, a permanent location for her cake business Deep Sea Sugar & Salt, Charlie Dunmire is counting on it.

We wrote about Dunmire’s stunningly beautiful London Fog cake in our June issue, until now only available weekends at her Airstream trailer in the Georgetown Trailer Park Mall. But beginning in early 2018, Deep Sea will have a more regular outpost in the historic 1911 building that currently holds the Carleton Avenue Grocery.

“I wasn’t really even looking for a place to open yet,” Dunmire says. “But it just kind of appeared—an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”

What she’s referring to is the fact that she’d just moved back to Georgetown from some time spent in Queen Anne. She went to the corner grocery store by the house she was renting and struck up a conversation with the owners, who explained they were kind of burnt out and looking for someone to take over the space. She told them not to tell anyone else.

Dunmire plans to keep groceries a part of the business—after all, Carleton is the only little market down there. She also plans to keep the Airstream running on weekends because of the foot traffic it reaches as part of the outdoor mall. The Carleton space will offer cakes whole or by the slice (and you’ll likely always be able to find favorites like that London Fog and the rich, decadent chocolate cake soaked in Georgetown Brewing Company’s 9 Lb. Porter), plus essentials like eggs and milk for the neighborhood.

The Airstream menu will continue to be more seasonal and experimental, with a rotating selection of cakes. And when they sell out, she’ll be able to refer this consistent stream of new customers there to her permanent spot six blocks away.

On Tuesday, Dunmire is launching a Kickstarter campaign (complete with awesome rewards like catered cake parties and membership to a monthly cake club) to raise the $35,000 she still needs in order to convert the more residential kitchen space of the Carleton into the commercial production kitchen she needs. Stop by 9 Lb. Hammer in Georgetown between 6 and 9 p.m. Tuesday to try Dunmire’s cakes and help kick off the Kickstarter. Go, eat cake, thank us later.