Why Whoopi Goldberg Is Feuding With a Staten Island Bakery

The left-leaning host of “The View” said the business in a Republican stronghold declined to take an order under her name. The bakery said politics had nothing to do with it.

A small sponge cake topped with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry is the crux of a political skirmish between Whoopi Goldberg and a 146-year-old Staten Island bakery.

Ms. Goldberg said Holtermann’s Bakery, in the heart of New York City’s reddest borough, refused to fill an order placed under her name, perhaps because of her liberal politics.

The bakery’s owner said it wasn’t personal and that politics had nothing to do with it.

Now, the bakery’s phone is ringing off the hook, and customers are lining up to show their support for a Staten Island institution — and their opposition to Ms. Goldberg.

In the final minutes of Wednesday’s episode of“The View,” Ms. Goldberg said she was celebrating her birthday with an old-fashioned pastry, charlotte russe, that had been a favorite of her mother’s.

“I should tell you, charlotte russe has no political leanings,” she said. “And the place that made these refused to make them for me.”