Windsor café offers more than 125 flavours of cheesecake

I recently received a tweet from Mike Kessler. He was lamenting the closure of Tunnel Bar-B-Q, the iconic downtown Windsor institution celebrated by many not just for ribs, but dessert as well.

While I never had the chance to visit TBQ myself, I understand that one of the most popular items they served was cheesecake. So after a bit of research, I have an answer for Mike.

Mrs. Jones Café and Cheesecake Co. is located on Wyandotte Street East in Olde Riverside. Owner Mary Beth Regier says one of the reasons she opened up back in 2008 was because there was no place serving desserts like TBQ on Windsor's east side.

While many places in Windsor sell cheesecake, Mrs. Jones takes the dessert to a new level. They sell more than 125 different flavours.

Regier didn't always serve so many varieties of her made-from-scratch cheesecake. (You can find a list here.) It was a gradual process of playing with ideas and finding interesting recipes for years.

A rotating variety is available for sale at the café by the slice, and any flavour is available if you order an entire cake in advance.

Regier even takes requests — but if she doesn't feel like it will work, she will decline. For example, when somebody recently asked her to make a rhubarb cheesecake, Regier had to decline because rhubarb wasn't in season and she wasn't happy with the frozen variety.

While the popular New York-style cheesecake is offered with five toppings, it only counts as one flavour. Cheesecakes named after chocolate bars are not simply topped with its namesake — the entire cake is crafted to replicate the taste.

Some of the flavours are even savoury, with flavours such as pesto sun-dried tomato, chipotle chile and creamy crab seafood. They haven't quite caught on yet, but Mary Beth hopes that will change.

"They're just a really nice entertainment item. It's just a little six-inch size, they're not over the top. Put it out with a baguette. You do need something kind of sturdy [to spread the cheese] — you can't have a flimsy cracker."