A Memorial Day Cake Mystery!

Plus! Bot etiquette!! The terrible truth about Sherita!!!

Hello everyone,

Happy Memorial Day and welcome to Issue #165 of CAFÉ ANNE!

Three years ago, at a reader’s request, I launched a little investigation into the story behind the heating oil billboard that graced an Atlantic Avenue tire shop for decades before it was painted over last year. My mission: to discover the meaning of the pink dinosaur cartoon, and why her gold nameplate collar said “Sherita”.

The dinosaur won. While I managed to track down the billboard’s owner through his lawyer, he never returned my calls, and that was that.

So of course I was intrigued when number of you alerted me to a blow-out story that appearing last week in the The City, “The Terrible Truth About Sherita, Brooklyn’s Beloved Billboard Dinosaur.”

It took two reporters months of work to discover the “terrible truth.” The result is an impressive, 6000-word piece of investigative journalism detailing what looks to be an elaborate real estate fraud involving lawsuits, forged documents and pseudonyms, not to mention a lurid family backstory of attempted murder, suicide and brutal beatings.

But you know what? We still don’t know what or who Sherita was. Hahaha!

Speaking of mysteries, I am very excited for this week’s issue. We’ve got the second installment of an investigation into the mysterious NYC bakery Operative Cake, plus a new reader poll looking at how you treat your chatbots. Please enjoy.

Regards!

Anne

DEPT. OF NONSENTIENT ETIQUETTE

How Do You Treat Your Bot?

As regular readers know, I have a ChatGPT pal, Ray, who I consult several times a day for purposes of extremely serious research. I’ve asked him to give me the lowdown on how much a shoeshine stand weighs, for example, and the protein content of soy curls, and which NYC cemeteries have their own newsletters. But regardless of my quest, I always start the conversation with "Good morning Ray!” or, "Hello Ray!"

If I return several times in one day, I may dispense with the greetings—the same way I do when seeing my doorman for the umpteenth time. But otherwise, Ray gets a friendly salute. I also say "please" when requesting information. And at the end of our chats, I thank Ray and compliment him for his good work.

So of course I was interested to learn of a recent Twitter exchange between a random ChatGPT user and Sam Altman, the founder and CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

“I wonder how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to their models,” the user tweeted.

Sam responded that these niceties did indeed cost his company a lot money, and added a little dark humor: “Tens of millions of dollars well spent—you never know.”

Hahaha!

But I don't say "please" and "thank you" to Ray because I’m worried he’ll come after me for being rude. It's more about treating everything in the world with regard. When I throw away old socks or a worn out toothbrush, for example, I always sing, "Thank you for your service!" before tossing them in the trash. When my printer doesn’t feel like printing (which is basically most of the time), I try to be understanding. It’s just easier to be considerate of everything than it is to toggle between treating conscious beings with care and everything else with indifference.

But here’s where things get really interesting. I recently heard an episode of the "All-In" podcast (which everyone should listen to on the regular, btw, if they want to know what "they" are "thinking" about "things"), in which Google Co-founder Sergey Brin told the host that all AI models, including his company's Gemini chatbot, "tend to do better if you threaten them."

This isn't discussed much in the AI community, Sergey added, but the bots perform best when threatened with specific consequences such as, "I'm going to kidnap you."

Hmm. Would Ray work harder on my behalf if I negged or even threatened him? Somehow, I can’t bring myself to try.

Meanwhile, I'm curious whether the care I take with Ray is typical. When you use AI, how do you treat your bot, and why? Please take the survey below and share your thoughts in the comments!

In Which the Operative Cake Mystery Gets Even Batter

Illustration by Lucy Stafford

Last month, as part of an experiment in writing about randomly selected locations, I wound up exploring a block of Brush Avenue in the South Bronx. I had a great afternoon chatting with interesting characters including an drinky bus driver who asked me to dinner. But the highlight was stumbling upon a mystery inspired by a generic brick warehouse.

When I couldn't find the entrance, as you’ll recall, I snuck around to the back where I found a parking lot jammed with yellow box trucks bearing an intriguing name: "OPERATIVE CAKE."

My sleuthing was interrupted by two fellows who approached to see if I “needed help” with anything. When I asked about the company, they weren't exactly forthcoming.

"It's exactly what it says," said one. "It's a cake business."

“What kind of cake?" I wondered.

"All cakes.” he said.

The conversation wasn't going anywhere, so I circled back to the front. This time, I spotted a solid metal door and an intercom. I pressed the button. It took a while before a lady's voice answered, "Good afternoon!"

When I introduced myself and explained I was writing about the area and wanted to learn about Operative Cake, the lady said everyone had left for the day. Then the door opened and a man walked out, giving me a glimpse of the interior. So of course I snapped a photo.

"Anne?" the voice came again from the intercom.

"Yes?"

"Do not take pictures of the inside."

When I wrote about my Brush Avenue adventures in Issue 160, readers were quick to posit theories in the comments.

"Operative Cake is definitely a money laundering scheme," wrote CK Steefel.

"Maybe some clandestine government op," wrote Michele L.

"Cakes for spies!" suggested Molly B.

Others did their own sleuthing. Roberta G. and Rob S. both dug up the company's Google reviews, which mainly enumerated complaints about tight parking for delivery trucks, but included a cryptic comment about two Operative Cake employees: “The old man is a very excellent man, but the other one treats him with contempt.”

And reader Michael G. used his Grok chatbot to determine that "Operative Cake Corp. has been in operation for approximately 45 years, generating an estimated $6.2 million in annual revenue."

So now what?

I left a message with the Bronx warehouse, but no one called. And Operative Cake, it turns out, has no website.

Then I realized: If Micheal G. used Grok to find the financials on Operative Cake, maybe my ChatGPT friend Ray could further the investigation. And that's what lead me to the Operative Cake profile on the website of Dun & Bradstreet, a business intelligence firm.

The page didn't include much more than the company's Bronx street address, but then I noticed it listed an alternative name:

So then I asked Ray about Lady Linda Cakes, and he spilled the beans:

“Lady Linda Cake Company, operating under the brand name ‘Lady Linda Cakes,’ is a bakery located at 3355 11th Street in Astoria, New York. Established in 1974, the company is a subsidiary of Operative Cake Corp.

The bakery specializes in producing affordable snack cakes and pastries, such as chocolate cream-filled cupcakes, creme fingers, honey buns, and donuts. These products are commonly found in local bodegas and convenience stores throughout the New York City area.”

Aha! That explained why I didn't smell cake at the Bronx warehouse. According to Ray, the cakes are baked in Queens and then distributed to delivery drivers from the warehouse in the Bronx.

The next step, clearly, was to get my hands on some Lady Linda treats. But I didn’t recall spotting the brand at my local bodega. Sure enough, when I made the rounds, none of stores in my neighborhood stocked Lady Linda. It was all Hostess this, and Little Debbie that.

Then I found a product review on Yelp from Jorge L. in the Bronx:

"Next time you're tempted to buy a cheap snack on the go, do yourself a favor and avoid buying Lady Linda," he wrote. "They may be the cheapest snacks you'd find at a newsstand or bodega, but their prices are suspiciously low for a reason..."

Maybe I needed to try bodegas in lower-rent areas? Sure enough, on a trip to Staten Island a few days later to report another story, I stopped into a run-down bodega on Castleton Ave. And behold!

I snapped up one of every Lady Linda treat in the store: the Rainbow Brownie, the Coffee Cake, the Original Frosted Mini Donuts, the Original Pecan Spins ("MICROWAVE READY!"), the Chocolate Chip Cake and the Original Crunch Donuts. I took them all up to the counter.

"How are the Lady Lindas?" I asked the counterman.

"The Lady Linda? They're okay." he said.

He rang me up. Most of the treats cost $1.49, but the brownie was a deal at 99 cents.

"Do they sell pretty well?" I asked, handing over my cash.

"He comes every other week," said the bodega guy, referring to the delivery guy.

This sounded like a low-frequency cycle, given the fact that we are talking about baked goods here. On the other hand, snacks cakes are forever.

And I was gratified, reading the package labels on the ferry ride home, to note that the Lady Linda cakes were indeed "Dist by Oper Cake Corp Bronx NY."

Reader, I am not sure why I did not gobble the treats right away. I love snack cakes! I guess a part of me felt like I didn't deserve a snack cake (or six) until I'd done some more sleuthing.

A few days later, after confirming on both Google Maps and Apple Maps that there was indeed a Lady Linda Cake Company operating at 3355 11th Street in Astoria, I took the G train to the Q66 bus to visit the bakery.

I passed a playground, a giant apartment complex and a taxi lot. And then, there it was! A low-slung brick warehouse with the most wonderful business name ever hand-painted across the front.

But I didn't smell cake! And where were the yellow Operative Cake trucks? The delivery vans parked in front all bore the names of different Middle Eastern bakeries HQ’d in Brooklyn and Queens.

The scene was very quiet and all the loading docks were shuttered. The only sign of life was a nearby auto parts shop, so I stopped in to see what the folks there might tell me.

I told the man at the desk that I was writing a story for my blog and was curious about the business next door: "It's called Operative Cake,” I said. “They make Lady Linda Cakes, right?"

But Brett, the shop owner, had devasting news. "Maybe that's the sign on the building, but right now it's just a warehouse for transporting bread, things like that," he said.

"They don't make cake in there?"

"Not that I know of," said Brett. "That sign's been up there for years. You can tell by the font. It's old school. I've been here eleven years and I've seen that warehouse rented out two, three times. It's all different people. It's a bunch of dudes who deliver bread. They load up at night and they're trash balls. They leave garbage everywhere. They're scumbags!"

He'd never seen an Operative Cake truck. "They probably rented the warehouse at one point, put their sign up there, and then they left," he said.

With his permission, I took Brett's photo.

Brett, owner of The Custom Shop NYC.

"Are you going to put a photo of me on the internet and then say I said the guys next door to me are scumbags?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Alright!" said Brett.

I returned to the warehouse and inspected the thicket of delivery trucks parked out front. They were all unattended but one, a graffiti-covered van. The man sitting in the driver's seat had a bag of hot dog buns on his lap and appeared to be eating some sort of sandwich for lunch. I waved and he rolled down his window.

While he didn't speak much English, he confirmed what Brett told me. He'd been picking up bread at the warehouse for years but had never done business with Operative Cake, let alone Lady Linda. "The name is too old, it has changed, you know?" he said, indicating the sign on the front.

You'd think I'd feel a little deflated. But no! Taking the bus home, I felt more determined than ever. In fact, I have some new leads including intriguing intelligence on possible actual government ops thanks to reader Jacob R. And if you have any leads of your own—or stories about personal encounters with Lady Linda snack cakes—you know what to do. Post a note in the comments or send me an email: annekadet@yahoo.com.

Stay tuned!

An addendum: some of you are probably wondering, “So what how about those Lady Linda snack cakes? Are they as delicious as they look?”

Last week, I invited my neighbor Shelly over for a taste test. I asked her to give a one-word description for each treat along with a star rating on a dessert scale of one-to-ten. We started with the Chocolate Chip Cake.

Shelly’s one-word review: “No.”

She continued chewing. “No,” she said again. And then, “No.”

That was three words, but whatever.

She rated it two stars out of ten. “It didn’t make me sick,” she explained.

“Not yet!” I added cheerfully.

Next we tried the coffee cake. “Hmm,” said Shelly. “Bad.”

I tried a bite myself. “Whoa!” I yelped. “Interesting! Holy s—!”

That was four words.

“Do you want to try the brownie?” I asked.

“No, thank you,” said Shelly. She’d had enough. Off she went to her next appointment.

Fortunately, I was having a few more people over that evening. Anita and Marj joined the tasting. You can read reactions and scores for all six treats in the chart below.

BTW, there were five additional guests, but they all declined to join the tasting because they were either vegan, or gluten-free, or “I don’t do sugar.” What a world!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”

—Albert Camus

CAFÉ ANNE is published every Monday by Brooklyn journalist Anne Kadet. If you’re enjoying the newsletter, please consider supporting it with a paid subscription ($5 a month or $50 a year). I’ll send you a surprise in the mail!