About 20 miles southwest of downtown Minneapolis, in the small town of Excelsior, a curiously named business sits wedged in a strip mall among a taqueria, a nail salon, and a pet groomer.
Wander inside and you might think you’re in a museum dedicated to Prince, the Minneapolis-born musical genius who lived just four miles south of here at his private home and recording studio complex, Paisley Park. The purple walls are dotted with photos of the homegrown superstar, who passed away 10 years ago this year. The business may double as a de facto homage to the self-proclaimed Purple Yoda, but it’s actually one of the hottest bakeries in the Midwest. Welcome to Cheesecake Funk.
When owner Vanessa Drews opened the cheesecake bakery in September 2025, it quickly became the talk of the baked good loving Twin Cities. And the Prince connection goes far beyond the bakery’s purple walls. But for lovers of all things sweet and creamy, Cheesecake Funk is today a veritable mecca for those in the know.
Dig, if you will, the superlative turtle cheesecake laden with rich dark chocolate, gooey caramel, and crunchy toasted pecans, with a crispy bottom crust. The exact recipe for that crust is a secret, but Drews admits to using cinnamon and a healthy portion of brown butter. It’s a masterpiece of contrasting textures and layered flavors, which perhaps explains why it’s Cheesecake Funk’s best seller.
For Drews, a single Black mother of two, it all started back in 2002 when she was still a hobby baker. A lifelong lover of cheesecakes, she baked them for family and friends who began requesting them for every party and holiday gathering. “I started tweaking the recipe over time, mixing the crust with brown butter, adding cinnamon here and there,” Drews says.
At the time she was working a day job as a senior paralegal and making cheesecake in her free time. But money was tight, and she picked up a part-time gig selling merchandise at Paisley Park on the occasional evenings that Prince threw open-to-the-public parties. One day in 2013, she showed up with a cheesecake.
“Prince always had band members and other employees coming here from other parts of the country and the world,” Drews recalls. “So, I put the cheesecake in the fridge with a note saying that anyone was welcome to a piece. I wanted to provide some good food for them and say: ‘Welcome to Minnesota.’” Stocking the fridge with cheesecake became a ritual.
Soon Drews noticed the speed with which her cheesecakes were devoured. Who could be responsible? And then, scrolling through the social media site formerly known as Twitter, a particular post caught her attention: A meme of two monkeys trying to resuscitate a fellow simian that featured the words, “The moment you find out somebody ate the last piece of Vanessa’s cheesecake.” It was uploaded from an account managed by Prince.
“I thought: ‘Oh my God, I’m the Vanessa he’s referring to!’” she says. “I was euphoric."
Prince began calling her edible handiwork “cheesecake funk,” often including the phrase on invitations to parties at Paisley Park, writing “HELPYOSELFTOSOMECHEESECAKEFUNK.” After that, at Paisley Park parties, Prince would occasionally walk by Drews and, with his trademark smirk, say, “What’s for dessert, Vanessa?” before walking away. (This anecdote may surprise Prince fans—there’s a common misconception that he was 100% vegan. Not so, at least when it came to cheesecake.)
While Prince’s endorsement certainly boosted her confidence, she didn’t feel ready to quit her job and become a full-time baker. But then, a big break: In 2019, a friend of a friend offered a bite of Drews’s cheesecake to Kam Talebi, founder and CEO of Kaskaid Hospitality, the Twin Cities–based enterprise with 18 restaurants nationwide. He loved it enough to put it on the dessert menu of the Eden Prairie location of Crave American Kitchen & Sushi Bar, a small chain of restaurants scattered across the Midwest.
“A few months later, Kam called me and he said, ‘You’d better prepare for volume. I’m adding your cheesecake to all eight Twin Cities locations of Crave,’” Drews recounts. “I remember sitting at my desk at the law office and thinking, Oh my gosh! Is this really happening?”
She decided to pull the proverbial trigger. Drews dipped into some of her 401(k) plan to buy baking equipment and set up shop in a rented hotel kitchen. Fast-forward to September 2025, when she opened a bakery near her home in Excelsior, using the moniker Prince came up with, Cheesecake Funk.
Prince’s favorite variety, turtle, is decidedly bold, but there are no wallflowers among the 17-plus flavors on offer at any given time, many of them seasonal. This past summer’s flavor, lingonberry, was appropriately Minnesotan given the state’s large population of people with Scandinavian heritage, and it was enough of a hit that Drews added it to the permanent menu.
“It’s very tart, but has bursts of sweetness, similar to strawberry,” Drews says. “It’s just really refreshing and light, perfect for summer.” As the weather shifts, it’s on to the next: The current fall seasonal flavors include a deceptively simple apple cheesecake topped with stewed fruit laced with cinnamon.
These days, one has ample options when seeking Cheesecake Funk products in the Twin Cities. In downtown Minneapolis, stop by Union Rooftop, Brit’s Pub, Butcher’s Table, Wood + Paddle, or one of a handful of locations of Crave in and around the Twin Cities, or even Paisley Park. Or you can go to the original Cheesecake Funk in Excelsior and say hello to Drews. Prince fans have begun stopping there on their way to or from Paisley Park.
“The other day I had a couple from Germany, and this afternoon, these sweet ladies came in from the Netherlands,” Drews says. “People come to find me because they appreciate Prince.”
“I’m so thankful to him,” she continues. “Prince is like the gift that keeps on giving.”