Melissa Ben-Ishay

Melissa Ben-Ishay was born in Hillsdale, New Jersey. She attended Syracuse University, in Syracuse, New York from 2002 to 2006, receiving a Bachelor's of Science degree in Child and Family Studies. She has an older brother, Brian Bushell.[2]

Baked by Melissa storefront in the Upper East Side, Manhattan.

After graduating from college, Ben-Ishay worked at an advertising agency in New York City. In 2008, she was fired from her job as an assistant media planner at Deutsch, and was encouraged by her brother to go home and bake her cupcakes, and they would start a business together.[3][4] Ben-Ishay's first flavors were tie-dye, inspired by the Grateful Dead, s'mores, peanut butter cup, and cookies and cream.

The next day, she sent cupcakes into work with her best friend's sister, who was interning at Alison Brod PR. They received rave reviews, and Brod connected Ben-Ishay with her caterer. Ben-Ishay and Bushell quickly came up with the "Baked by Melissa" name, with their childhood friend creating its tie-dye cupcake logo.

The Baked by Melissa operations moved into the basement of Cafe Bari in late 2008, selling cupcakes at the holiday markets at Union Square and Bryant Park.[5] In March 2009, Ben-Ishay, her brother, and three other co-founders opened a Baked by Melissa pop-up window in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan.[6]

At the beginning, Ben-Ishay served as President & Chief Product Officer, with Bushell as CEO of Baked by Melissa until 2015.[1] In 2019, Ben-Ishay was named CEO.

Baked by Melissa opened its first walk-in store in 2010 in Union Square. It currently has 14 retail locations in the NYC metropolitan area and ships its bite-size cupcakes nationwide.[7] Ben-Ishay still develops every flavor.

In addition to leading Baked by Melissa, Ben-Ishay gained a significant social media following[8] on TikTok in 2020 when she began posting salads and other recipes she was making at home.

In 2017, Ben-Ishay released a cookbook titled Cakes by Melissa: Life Is What You Bake It, published by William Morrow Cookbooks.[9] The book features 120+ recipes for Ben-Ishay's favorite cakes, icings, and fillings.

Ben-Ishay gained popularity on TikTok in 2020 when she began sharing the meals she was cooking for her family. In 2022, her version of the Green Goddess Salad went viral,[10] eventually becoming the number 6 searched recipe on Google.[11]

Melissa is married to Adi Ben-Ishay, who also works for Baked by Melissa.[12] The pair met at Cafe Bari, where he was bartending, the day the Baked by Melissa pop-up window opened.