Fadi Jaber is the gay owner behind the Cakeroom’s bright pink facade on 18th Street, N.W. He combines his Middle Eastern background and American flavors to bring a nostalgic spread of desserts to Adams Morgan.

Born and raised in a U.S. compound in Saudi Arabia, Jaber first unlocked an interest in classic American desserts from his classmates.

“I was jealous that their moms would bring these delicious cupcakes to school when it was their birthdays, and my mom never made stuff like that. It was just grape leaves and hummus and very good Arabic food,” Jaber said.

After years of making boxed cake mixes in Saudi Arabia, Jaber tried a carrot cake from a friend’s wife from the U.S. He soon decided to make the recipe himself. When letting his parents sample the treat, Jaber’s mother suggested adding dates instead of carrots.

Now, Jaber sells the same date cake at the Cakeroom.

Jaber solidified his appreciation for American baked goods after a friend took him to Magnolia’s Bakery in New York. The visit inspired him to enroll in the Institute of Culinary Education.

“I just fell in love with the concept, and it was very much up my alley,” Jaber said. “I was already baking from scratch and making homemade style desserts that weren’t super chichi and elegant, but more just delicious and fun and nostalgic, and a throwback to people’s childhood.”

Upon leaving culinary school, Jaber moved to Jordan, where his parents relocated. He decided to leave his corporate job and open a bakery. According to Jaber, his father initially refuted the idea until he tried the desserts Jaber perfected in culinary school.

“He was part of the Palestinian diaspora. So, you know, given all the instability in his life having been forced out of their homes in 1948, it was really a very scary thought to add more instability by going out on your own and starting your own business,” Jaber said.

Jaber then opened Sugar Daddy’s, his first bakery, in Amman, Jordan, in 2007. 

According to Jaber, the bakery was the first cupcake shop in the Middle East. He soon launched additional locations in Beirut, Lebanon, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. 

After six years, Jaber decided to return to the U.S. Jaber noted that he had “always longed” to live there, but he struggled to make his cakes a novel concept to an American audience.

“I’m kind of bringing pasta to the Italians, in a sense, where my cupcakes were very unique in Jordan, they wouldn’t be as unique in D.C.,” Faber said. “But my mom had confidence. She didn’t even bat an eye, and she was like, ‘I think you should do it.’”

Years prior, Jaber began visiting Washington while attending the College of William & Mary. Upon the move, he settled on Washington as a less competitive market than New York, citing his appreciation for the city’s international feel, architecture and nature.

After recruiting investors, Jaber opened Sugar Daddy’s in Adams Morgan in December 2013. However, upon being struck with a cease and desist letter from a bakery in Ohio with a similar name, Jaber experimented with 20 different names for the business. 

Finally, he settled on the Cakeroom in the summer of 2014.

“I actually got some calls from D.C. government employees thanking me for the name change, because they said Sugar Daddy’s didn’t look good when they would Google it on their work laptops,” Jaber said, jokingly.

As for Jaber’s identity as a gay man, he notes that he hopes customers visit the Cakeroom because “they like our product” rather than due to his sexual identity. Still, he notes that operating the bakery in an LGBTQ-friendly city increases business opportunities to bake for LGBTQ weddings.

“A lot of people know me as the owner, I’m the face behind the brand. People in D.C. know that I’m gay, so I think we do get some business that way, but I would hate for people to just support my business because of my sexual orientation,” Jaber said.

Jaber manages the Cakeroom remotely, focusing on online orders, deliveries, scheduling, ordering, cash management, and more. He notes that while most days are routine, “at least two, three times a week there’s some firefighting that needs to happen.”

While Jaber does not intend on opening another location of the Cakeroom, he hopes to continue managing the business for another decade.

“I’ve been in this industry for 18 years,” Jaber said. “So if I can just keep it afloat, that would be my hope. It gives me purpose on a daily basis.”

Jaber’s top recommendations from the Cakeroom’s array of sweets include Nutella cookies, the date cake, and the carrot cake. 

The carrot cake is based on the dessert that first inspired Jaber to pursue a career in baking.

“I think I altered it just a tiny bit, but for the most part, it is based off of the original recipe that I got from my friend’s wife,” Jaber said.

Little District Books, D.C.’s only LGBTQ bookstore, in early October moved  its store from the Barracks Row section of Capitol Hill to a new, larger space at 631 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E. in a more prominent location on Capitol Hill less than a block from the Eastern Market Metro station.  

The store, which describes itself on its website as a “queer owned and operated” independent bookstore that “celebrates LGBTQ+ authors and stories,” first opened in its previous location on 8^th Street, S.E. in June 2022. 

At that time it became the first D.C. LGBTQ bookstore since 2009, when the city’s famed Lamda Rising LGBTQ bookstore closed its doors after its owner Deacon McCubbin retired. 

Little District  Books owner, D.C. attorney Patrick Kern, said his main reason for moving was to find a larger space in which to provide a larger number of books and to host larger events. Among the events he said his store has hosted in the previous location were author book-signings and meetings of a number of book clubs.

“We started looking for somewhere that would allow us to do a lot more,” he told the Washington Blade. “So, in the old space we had like 2,800 different titles,” he said. “And in this new space we will be able to go up significantly. We are probably closer to 4200 titles at this point. We will likely get closer to 5000 next year.”

According to Kern, the old location was only about 700 square feet, with the new location providing nearly 2,000 square feet.

“We have a lot of plans,” Kern said. “We will launch a little café corner later this year, so we’ll have a more dynamic in-space experience,” he said. “We’re going to have a little tea counter where you can buy hot drinks” as well as cold non-alcoholic beverages, he said.

Kern has said Little District Books carries books that cover a wide range of topics and stories, both fiction and nonfiction.

“We have books by LGBT authors about LGBT topics. We have books by LGBT authors about non-LGBT topics,” he said. “And then I have LGBT stories that are written by non-LGBT people as well,” he told the Blade in a July 2023 interview.

He told the Blade last week that he was hopeful that the new location’s larger space, that will allow more and larger events and more books, will continue to prompt people to come into the store to buy their books rather than buy them through online sites where most books are now sold.

Gay Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Miguel Trindade Deramo on Nov. 18 announced his candidacy for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat being vacated by incumbent Councilmember Brianne Nadeau.

Trindade Deramo, 39, became at least the sixth Democratic candidate competing for the Ward 1 Council seat in the city’s June 16, 2026, Democratic primary. Among his competitors is fellow gay Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Brian Footer, who announced his candidacy in July.

Footer serves as chairman of ANC 1E, which represents the city’s Howard University, Park View, and Pleasant Plains neighborhoods in Ward 1.

Trindade Deramo serves as chairman of ANC 1B, which, according to its website, represents the neighborhoods of lower Columbia Heights, Cardozo, LeDroit Park, North Shaw, Meridian Hill, the U Street Corridor, and lower Georgia Avenue. The U Street Corridor is where multiple nightlife establishments are located, including at least 10 gay bars.

“I’m running for D.C. Council because I believe this community deserves a leader who will roll up their sleeves and turn progressive policy into action,” Trindade Deramo said in a statement announcing his candidacy. “Together we can unlock Ward 1’s full potential by tackling affordability, reimagining public safety, and addressing local neighborhood concerns,” he said.

His announcement statement says he was born in Michigan, where his mother immigrated from Brazil. It says he came to D.C. in 2012 to train as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer at the State Department. It says he chose to make D.C. his home in 2016 and says he “now lives at 14th and Chapin with his partner, Luis.”

A biographic write-up on his education and career posted on his campaign website states, “Miguel attended Northeastern University, where he immersed himself in LGBTQ+ activism and established himself as a student leader.”

It says that after graduating with a degree in international relations and political science, he became a Foreign Service Officer at the State Department. According to the write-up, after serving a tour in São Paulo, he pursued a graduate degree in Islamic studies at McGill University in Montreal and he later began another federal job as an intelligence analyst at the Department of Homeland Security.

“However, after witnessing the erosion of democratic norms under the Trump administration, the hyper-militarized response to the Black Lives Matter movement, and the insurrection of Jan. 6, Miguel acted on his deep sense of civic duty by leaving the federal government and joining the pro-democracy movement,” his campaign write-up says.

It adds that he soon became involved in electoral reform organizations and a short time later emerged as one of the lead organizers of the D.C. Initiative 83 campaign, in which D.C. voters overwhelming approved a ranked choice voting system as well as open D.C. primary elections.

The June 16, 2026, D.C. Democratic primary in which Trindade Deramo and Footer will be competing against each other and at least four other candidates will be the first time the city’s ranked choice voting system will be in place for D.C. voters.

Under the system, in elections where there are more than two candidates competing, voters can mark their first choice and their second, third, or more choices if they wish to do so. In the Ward 1 Democratic primary next June LGBTQ voters as well as all other voters will have the option of voting for Trindade Deramo or Footer as their first or second choice.

When asked by the Washington Blade what message he has for LGBTQ voters in Ward 1 who will be choosing among two gay candidates, Trindade Deramo said, among other things, he will point out that he has represented the U Street Corridor in his role as an ANC member.

“A huge mission of mine is to make that space for everyone,” he said. “And U Street unites everyone. All the different people from all over the city come there for theater, for clubbing, for thinking, for eating, whatever,” he added. “And that includes LGBTQ+ people.”

Footer didn’t immediately respond to a request by the Blade for comment on Trindade Deramo’s candidacy.

Trindade Deramo’s campaign website can be accessed here:

Brian Footer’s campaign website can be accessed here: