Iowa City’s DeLuxe Cakes and Pastries is now a semifinalist for the prestigious James Beard Award in the outstanding bakery category, a recognition often coined the “Oscars of food.” DeLuxe has a chance to be named among the top five in March.

For owner Jamie Powers, the nomination, announced Jan. 21, is both a personal milestone and a celebration of the bakery’s 20-year mission: crafting exceptional pastries while serving as a hub for the community.

Powers is the first person in Iowa City to be a semifinalist for the James Beard Award.

The award has several categories, including outstanding hospitality, chef, restaurateur, wine, and more.

Nominations are submitted by the public and reviewed by an independent committee of culinary experts, who evaluate semifinalists on talent, creativity, leadership, and overall excellence before selecting finalists and winners. 

On March 31, the top five will be announced, with a gala announcing the winner hosted on June 15 in Chicago.

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But Powers’ path to this moment didn’t start in a kitchen. She never planned on becoming a baker. After graduating from the University of Iowa, she got what she described as “the job” in Chicago at a public relations firm.

“I did not like it at all, and I started to work at a restaurant at night, a French restaurant called Bistro 110,” she said.

Bistro 110, along with four other restaurants, had a dessert competition. Powers, at the time a server and bartender, decided to come in with a surprise dessert, winning the competition.

“I was a lonely server bartender, and I came in with a surprise dessert win. I started working back of house, and then I just never wanted to stop working in kitchens,” Powers said.

After moving to Denver with her husband, she began to work at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant — a celebrity chef’s restaurant — in desserts. While working there, a coworker told her about a job opening for a pastry person at a five-star hotel called the Brown Palace Hotel.

“‘I said, ‘OK, Richie, but I haven’t gone to culinary school.’ And he said, ‘It’s fine, you can learn on the job,’” Powers said.

Powers said she learned everything at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, serving high tea pastries, restaurant dessert pastries, breakfast pastries, and wedding cakes.

“There’s no internet that I’m pulling off of. I went to an independent bookstore called the Tattered Cover, and I bought every pastry book that I could buy. Because there were people ahead of me that had gone to culinary school. So every day I had to go to work and catch up on what I never learned,” Powers said.

Powers then moved to a small bakery where she fell in love with the community atmosphere.

“I absolutely loved it, and I learned so much from the owners there, how to treat staff, how to be a part of the community, how to serve great food on a local level,” Powers said.

That accessibility to people’s lives, everything from birthdays to baby showers, is what motivated her to have her own store.

“My goal was to bring a community back into the neighborhood that was lost out in big box stores. Because it was right in that nuance of time, where there were malls, Cinnabons. People were leaving neighborhoods to go out to big box stores,” Powers said.

With the help of friends and family and after loans, renovations, and searching for equipment, on Nov. 2, 2003, Powers opened her bakery.

“The minute that we opened, so much of Iowa City showed up. I have photos of it. I’ll never forget that moment,” Powers said.

Powers ran the store by herself. She said she worked from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. most days, with it becoming her home. Now, over 20 years later, DeLuxe has sixteen employees.

While overjoyed about the semifinalist position, Powers said she is not worried about the results.

“I know that we deserve a place at some point, somewhere. And if it’s this, great. If not, what’s always mattered to me is who’s walking in our doors and how we’re serving our community. I truly mean that,” Powers said.

To accept the nomination, Powers must submit a written or video entry. She’s recruited Jason Smith, video specialist at the UI, to help her create her video.

“I chose to represent myself verbally. Instead of writing, because I’m a bad writer. And then, I, of course, got to work with Jason again. He’s really good at capturing people. The restaurant speaks for itself,” Powers said.

The community’s reaction has been pure pride. Iowa City resident and DeLuxe customer Rachel Monahan said she wasn’t surprised DeLuxe became a semifinalist.

“We loved their cakes. We had three different kinds in our wedding cake. And they were all super good. All of our guests raved about it,” Monahan said. “Just like the experience with tasting our cakes there, it just felt really special. We did that with Jamie, and she was just so wonderful, very happy for us getting married. It was something that was just so welcoming that we just want to keep going back.”

Beyond just the food, Anant Kamath of Iowa City said the bakery offers an “organic community experience.”

“It’s not a franchise like Starbucks or one of those places,” Kamath said. “It’s somebody who was born and raised in this community and has done good. I mean, her father used to be intimately involved with the Hawkeye program. So you know, so they’ve been here for a long time.”

For Powers, the support she’s felt from Iowa City has been profound, especially as customers shared they nominated her.

“It’s such a divided time that we have to hold on to things like this. And I cherish it so much, and I cherish it when I am sitting, because it is such a divided time. I cherish it as a little sparkling star,” Powers said.