The Grill Next Door; How a Kehillah Alumnus Started a Successful Breakfast Delivery Service – from Scratch!

When Alex Leiman (class of 2018) came into town for the Annual Kehillah Alumni Basketball Game, we learned something intriguing…
He had been enjoying his time at Tulane University doing more than just studying, Alex had begun an entrepreneurial adventure he called, Sexy Cakes. Along with his business partner Jonah Bornstein, they started working on turning the bright idea into a reality. A breakfast delivery service aimed at feeding hungry students quality food, quickly, in the wee hours. What he anticipated to be a bunch of hungry partiers, turned out to be grateful students, up late studying and needing nourishment.
Starting with a simple breakfast menu of pancakes, bacon, eggs and waffles, they’ve now branched out into their cleverly named Grill Next Door, grilled cheese sandwich, with aspirations to soon offer a “Sexy Shake” and fries (yet to be cleverly named). They’re expanding more than just their menu, they’ve increased their hours of operation, are excited to be getting merchandise like sweatpants and sweatshirts soon, and are now looking at developing an app.
Using mainly social media to promote their offerings the young men found creative ways to get the word out, giveaways on campus, and surprise food drops to garner attention, they established their substantial Instagram following and helped drive sales with little to no cost for their budding business. What started in their sophomore dorm kitchen processing about 50 orders in 2 hours, grew to more than a thousand orders to date. Perhaps the original roots of this savvy idea began here at Kehillah, where Alex’s senior internship included time at a Venture Capital Firm, giving him some real world experience around what starting a business entails and where to begin. Using the network he’d established as student here, he was able to tap Harrison Mitgang (class of 2019) for help with an automatic ticketing system that prints orders as they come in through Sexy Cakes Shopify store as well as Venmo.
If you’re interested in supporting this exciting endeavor, you can visit their website at tulanesexycakes.com or follow them on IG at tu_sexycakes to see the drops. With hopes of expanding to universities across the country, these young entrepreneurs are off to a great start!
