09/13/2026
This is a long one.. but it's fantastic!!! My amazing customer emailed me this and after is my response🩷:
Debbie,
It was nice to see you today. I know my friends will be thrilled with the banana pudding cheesecake and tres leches cake. I don’t know what me think about this, but when I left today, I was looking at that horse outside, and I thought, “I bet ChatGPT could write a great story about it.” Below is what it came up with. Thanks for the amazing work you continue to do. Your shop is truly a diamond in the rough that never disappoints!
Will
The Horse of Café de Pastel
Nobody knows exactly when the horse arrived outside Café de Pastel in West Columbia.
Some say it was placed there during the Eisenhower administration. Others believe Hernando de Soto left it behind after deciding the Broad River was simply too humid. The cafe’s official position is that the horse has “always been there” and that further questions will not improve your dining experience.
His name is Señor Neigh-Neigh, and at some point in his long career as Café de Pastel’s Director of Exterior Affairs, his neck suffered what veterinarians would describe as “a complete structural collapse” and what management calls “character.”
Señor Neigh-Neigh was not always like this. Once, he stood tall and proud, greeting customers with the majesty of a Spanish stallion. Then one afternoon, somebody carried a slice of banana pudding cheesecake past him.
He turned his head too quickly.
There was a terrible crack.
Since then, his head has remained permanently lowered—not from injury, the owners insist, but in humble reverence for the desserts being prepared inside.
And honestly, the horse is the perfect representative for Café de Pastel. The building looks like a place where you might get your transmission rebuilt, purchase an unauthorized iguana, or receive extremely informal tax advice. The latticework conceals either routine plumbing equipment or a fugitive. No one has ever investigated.
But then you walk inside.
There, in a refrigerated display case illuminated like the Crown Jewels, sits a banana pudding cheesecake so magnificent that grown adults begin reconsidering every dessert they have previously claimed to love. Beside it rests a tres leches cake containing enough milk to destabilize the dairy futures market.
People take one bite and immediately forgive the building for everything.
The horse with exposed rebar protruding from his cervical spine? That is no longer a safety concern. That is a beloved local landmark.
Indeed, Señor Neigh-Neigh has become something of a dessert sommelier. His recommendations are subtle but reliable. Ask whether you should order the banana pudding cheesecake, and his head points downward: yes. Ask about the tres leches cake: still yes. Ask whether you should get both: his head remains down, because his neck is completely broken, but spiritually the answer is emphatically yes.
Attempts have been made to repair him. In 2017, a man named Earl arrived with a tube of Gorilla Glue and considerable confidence. He studied the damage for several minutes, removed his sunglasses, and announced, “This is gonna require the big tube.”
He was never seen again.
So the horse remains at his post—weathered, fractured, and staring solemnly at the pavement like he has just opened his property-tax assessment. He asks for no salary, no veterinary care, and no explanation of why the restaurant’s finest desserts are being served behind a building that appears to house a probation office.
He simply stands there, day after day, bearing silent witness to one of West Columbia’s great truths:
Never judge a bakery by its exterior.
Judge it by whether the banana pudding cheesecake is good enough to make a concrete horse snap its own neck trying to get another look.
Omgosh Will!!!!! This is so hilarious, but so amazing and complimentary at the same time! I absolutely love it! My daddy loved horses and horse racing.. the guys next door found this and put it where it is now thinking since my husband works in concrete he could fix it🤣🤣🤣 yeah, that didn't happen. My cousin Christopher was an artist, he asked for it, I told him he could have it. He planned on putting in his yard and painting it pink! Sadly my daddy passed away July 25, 2024.. the day of his funeral my cousin was getting ready and had an aneurysm and passed💔🥹 it was the worst day of my life🥹 I decided the horse will stay as long as I am here, just as he is! I got a text one day, a photo of the mayor sitting on him🤣 he was his friend's with my cousin, it was priceless!
Thank you again, i will definitely be posting this! He never had a name, but now he does!!!SEÑOR NEIGH-NEIGH!🩷🩷🩷Debbie
