Of all the touchy topics we write about, one business is consistantly able to stoke the passion of our readers more than any other: Warren Brown’s CakeLove. Our previous posts about the rapidly growing U Street business have sparked heated controversy. Some of you like the cake, others think he’s overpriced or overrated, while still others have decidedly more negative opinions. Our approach is nuanced — while some of us enjoy his products, others have reservations about certain aspects of his business.

In their cover story this week the Washington City Paper examines the business and concludes “CakeLove isn’t all about the cake” and instead the “love” and “passion” the company talks about so much are the key to its success which they describe as a “rapidly growing empire.” For longtime Brown observers the article shouldn’t contain any major revelations, however it does contain some interesting tidbits. Washington Post reporter Judith Weinraub sees in Brown a story that strikes a chord with D.C., telling the paper that “‘He offers an alternate way of being in this city, and very few people have the courage to try that, so that’s enormously powerful,’ she says. ‘And he’s also really cute, too.’ ” Brown’s cuteness aside, City Paper’s Mike DeBonis concludes Brown was able to “build a business on a product that’s denser, drier, less sweet than most people are accustomed to” by crafting a carefully honed image of a former lawyer who dropped his bureaucratic job to pursue his “passion,” described at length on the Cakelove website. What do you think? And remember kids, play nice in the comments.