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Cheryl Day
James Beard Award winner
- Discipline
- Other
i. Biography
Cheryl Day has built her life’s work around the quiet grandeur of heritage baking, and around the histories it has carried, preserved, and too often obscured. As the chef-owner of Back in the Day Bakery in Savannah, Georgia, she makes a practice of honoring the craft not only through flour, butter, and sugar, but through memory itself—especially the often untold history of Black women who shaped American baking. Among those legacies is that of her great-grandmother, an enslaved pastry cook, a presence that deepens the meaning of Day’s work and helps explain its urgency. Day has described that sense of self-determination plainly: "I cannot imagine not creating my own destiny every single day. There's stress that comes with that, but we still love it."
The Path
Today, Cheryl Day is the founder and owner of Back in the Day Bakery since 2002, a place where the charm of the bakery counter meets the deeper work of stewardship and remembrance. The bakery has become her home base, the setting in which she has continued to refine a style that is both deeply personal and rooted in tradition. Her path widened further in 2020, when she became the co-founder of Southern Restaurants for Racial Justice. The work reflects the same conviction that has long shaped her baking: that the stories, labor, and expertise of Black women belong not at the margins, but at the center of the American table.
The Work Today
She remains the chef-owner there, and heritage baking is her specialty—a phrase that feels almost too spare for the richness of what she does. At Back in the Day Bakery, the past is not treated as nostalgia, but as living knowledge, tasted in familiar textures and old forms made present again. In 2020, she co-founded Southern Restaurants for Racial Justice, extending her focus from the kitchen into a broader public conversation about equity and recognition. Day’s work keeps returning to the same essential subject: cooks whose contributions have too often gone unnamed, and whose influence has nonetheless shaped the culture of American baking in ways still being uncovered.
Signature
Together, these creations reflect the range of her baking language: nostalgic without being static, familiar yet precise, each one carrying the bakery’s sense of generosity and craft.
Acclaim
Cheryl's honors include James Beard Awards semifinalist, Outstanding Baker (2015) and IACP Cookbook Award. The recognition underscores what her work has long made clear: that her voice belongs not only in the conversation about Southern baking, but in the larger record of American food culture itself.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Cheryl
What is Cheryl Day's current role?
As of 2026, Cheryl Day is Chef-Owner.
What recognition has Cheryl Day received?
James Beard Awards semifinalist, Outstanding Baker (2015).
What is Cheryl Day known for?
Heritage baking.
