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Each of these twelve photographs carries an orange date stamp in its corner: 3 29 '97, 3 31 '97. The colors run warm, a few are slightly out of focus, and every one of them shows the same shop: Kao Shieh Bakery (高仕蛋糕), barely a year and a half old.
Hardly anyone poses in them. There is only the shop, and the things inside it. We have set them in order, as if stepping in from the arcade, pushing open the door, and taking our time.
On September 28, 1995, Jim’s father opened Kao Shieh on Yanshou Street, in Taipei’s Minsheng Community. Like so many neighborhood bakeries of the time, it sold bread, birthday cakes, full-month celebration cakes and festive gift boxes, all made by hand.
This one was taken in daylight on March 31, 1997. The white sign reads “高仕蛋糕” in red beside a red oval logo, and a second sign turns the corner. Someone on a red scooter has just stopped at the door. It could be any ordinary day.
If we had to choose a single detail from these photos, it would be the three times on the window: 6:20, 12:00, 16:20. One batch at dawn, probably timed for people on their way out the door; one at noon; one more in the late afternoon. A day in Minsheng Community, written on glass as three numbers. In front of the window sit a money plant and a small table in red-and-white gingham.
The glass door bears the oval “KAO SHIEH 高仕蛋糕” logo. It is already late March, yet a red “恭賀新禧” (Happy New Year) still hangs by the door, next to an “ON SALE” sign. Behind it, shelf after shelf of bread, filled to the edges.
The display case was the liveliest place in the shop. Open red gift boxes on top; below them, a row of custard-yellow chick-shaped cakes, chocolate cupcakes standing one by one, and cakes cut into triangles. Bakeries in those days wanted to make a little of everything, so that whoever walked in would find something to love.
From inside, the lettering on the window reads backwards: “藝術蛋糕” (art cakes), “彌月” (full-month), and beneath them, in large characters, “歡迎訂購” (orders welcome). On the window shelf sit a few jars of peanut butter and rows of gold-wrapped pastries. Birthday cakes, full-month cakes and festive gift boxes: these were the shop’s first everyday.
Two days earlier, on the night of March 29, the lights were on at Kao Shieh, on its corner of Yanshou Street. The whole row of white, green-trimmed signs glowed at once, and above the eaves hung a round orange light box. To the left was a 7-Eleven; scooters were parked out front, and someone stood by the shop door. The street had gone dark, and the brightest things on it were these two shops.
In one corner of the shop stands a carved wooden statue of Guan Gong (關公). On the cabinet beside it is a small altar: a framed portrait, an incense burner, a pair of candlesticks. On the shelf below, a cassette stereo and a stack of takeaway boxes. Prayer, music and cake boxes, all in the same cabinet.
On the wall hangs a framed old photo of a large cake, several tiers high.
Among all that color, there is one quiet thing. On a black counter, in a clear box, sits a round cake, its top baked flat and evenly golden, a round white label at its center. Behind it, boxes of wrapped buns are stacked up.
It hardly stands out in the photo. Yet years later, cheesecake became the way many people came to know Kao Shieh. From 2007, as online group buying took off, Kao Shieh’s cheesecake was recommended again and again on blogs and among buyers online; in November that year, Kao Shieh Foods (高仕食品) became Kao Shieh Cake Co., Ltd. (高仕蛋糕股份有限公司). In 2012, a flagship store opened on Aiguo East Road. Its New York-style rich cheesecake (紐約特濃芝士) has remained one of the shop’s best sellers.
On the red-and-white gingham table sit several wicker baskets, filled with sealed packets of cookies and small treats, the gold-wrapped ones lined up neatly. Each basket holds a small handwritten card, a name and a price inside a colored border; one of them reads “$20．25.”
On the shelf against the wall, red gift boxes are stacked high, a few opened to show the treats arranged inside, a pink shopping bag beside them. A painting of two hippos hangs on the wall, and a lamp hangs from the ceiling. Gift boxes were never anything new in this shop.
And last, the counter. A curved glass cake case, decorated cakes on every tier; on the wall behind it, a large painting of peonies; a cash register printed with “KAO SHIEH,” a vase of white flowers beside it. Paying, wrapping, saying thank you: so much of a day happened right here.
Thirty years later, in December 2025, the second generation, Jim Kao (高煥), founded 髙 GAO Taipei at No. 453 Fujin Street, also in Minsheng Community. Yanshou Street and Fujin Street are not far apart. Between them lie thirty years.
髙 GAO Taipei’s Mellow cheesecake was developed from Kao Shieh’s New York-style rich cheesecake (紐約特濃芝士), a thread we chose to keep. The Sour cheesecake is an entirely new recipe, the second generation’s own question.
We did not recreate that crowded display case. Today 髙 GAO Taipei makes very few things: cheesecake, and Breton cookie gift boxes. But these photos remind us how simple a shop is at the start: bake on schedule, make everything by hand, leave a light on at the corner, so that people in the neighborhood can come by at the same hours and buy something fresh from the oven.
If dessert can be a doorway into a culture, then these twelve photographs are our first doorway.
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