Here we go again...fraudulent cupcake orders

It's been a while since we've gotten one of these emails and all of a sudden, we've gotten two of them, two days in a row.  I thought I'd post them, just like Kari of Retro Bakery, to warn others about scams like these.  In the past, I wasted time responding to these requests, but can now spot these a mile away.

Here's an email we received on Friday:

Hello

My name is Jennifer Williams am hearing impaired i cant use phone,You can only email or text me verify any information, that is why i chose to email you,I want to make order for 30 Dozen individual Cup Cakes Chocolate Flavor and strawberry for my Dad's B-Party and This is a pick up order so it will be pick up by 4:pm by my private courier services on 14Th of December so can you handle that for me and let me have the total cost plus tax so i can make the prepay payment with my credit card,and let me know the TYPE OF CREDIT CARD YOU ACCEPT OVER THE EMAIL OR
TEXT ?

My Text Only number: 256 346 5498

Kind Regard
Jennifer Williams

A combination of some or all of these indicators set off an internal alarm that an order could be fraudulent:

1. Large order
2. To be picked up by courier service
3. Payment by credit card over text or email
4. Unable to communicate by phone
5. Grammatical errors

Food Network's 3 Days to Open

 Photo Credit: 3 Days to Open

 

3 Days to Open is my new favorite show on Food Network.  Anyone seen it yet?  It's got Iron Chef (and my personal hero) Bobby Flay rescuing businesses in need of serious help three days before they are to open.  After each episode, viewers can go online for updates and I was fast to hit up the website foodnetwork.com/3days to see how the food entrepreneurs were doing.  I also read quite a bit of the online reviews and was shocked by many of the comments.  This is an awesome show!  Some people commenting said that they didn't think it was possible for some of the business owners to be so green and have little or no money so close to opening.  They thought all that was staged for a 'reality' show.

Guess what?  This sure happens in real life.  People go into business not knowing exactly what lies ahead.  I remember being shocked, alarmed even, by the amount of work that goes into running a bakery.  Going from a part-time side gig/hobby to a full-time business was an eye opener. A lot of problems that Bobby Flay found within the first day of working with the businesses, I also had and will always work on.  For someone like me who didn't go to culinary school or work a day in the industry (gasp!) prior to opening my business, the show is providing me with free education. Bobby Flay scores major points for being patient with the business owners and for sharing his expertise and even his recipes with them.  I watched all four episodes in one sitting and can't wait to watch upcoming episodes, with my pen and notepad beside me.

Market Days!

Hi Everyone! Seems like everyday we get people asking when we are going to open up for retail at our current location. While we are not quite ready for a full-blown retail operation, we are very pleased to offer Market Days on Saturdays! Market whuh? Let's explain. Our Market Day is our own little in-house farmers market-like situation. It's a time to chat, try samples, and grab goodies to go!  In the very beginning, our goal was to sell our cupcakes at farmers markets across the metro area. In fact, our very first blog post was dedicated to this. The whole market thing didn't really work out because, well, frosting and hot, humid weather don't really get along.

What we did love about our farmers market days was meeting new people, introducing our products to first timers and of course providing happy little take-home packages full of our sweet treats. This past Saturday, we quietly (as quiet as three balloons tied to a bistro chair outside our door) tested the waters and were thrilled at the response. That said, we'll be open Saturdays 10AM to 1PM and can't wait to see ya!

Location: 5392 Peachtree Rd, Chamblee GA, 30341.  Down the street from Maison Robert, Zen Tea, Steam Koffee,  Frosty Caboose and next door to Carrie's Bridal Collection.

Spring Cupcakes!

Our favorite time of the year is here and we have new cupcakes to boot! Without much ado, we are thrilled to present you with the addition of six cupcakes to our everyday flavors:

Big Dip: Chocolate cupcake with cream cheese frosting coated in chocolate and
topped with crunchy, caramelized hazelnuts

Chunky Monkey: Banana cupcake studded with chocolate chips with chocolate buttercream topped with Valrhona chocolate pearls and a banana chip

Coco-Nut: Coconut fans rejoice, coco-nut is ba-ack! Coconut cupcake with cream cheese frosting rolled in shredded coconut

Pink Lemonade: Lemon cupcake topped with cherry buttercream and candied lemon peel

Raspberry Swirl: Vanilla cupcake with raspberry swirl with cream cheese frosting topped with a pink rosette and raspberry puree

S'mores: Chocolate cupcake on graham cracker base with marshmallow frosting topped with a toasted marshmallow

Our Springtime Cupcakes are available through June 20. Enjoy!

Sweet Elise

My sweet Elise is gone. For those who may have met her at the Phipps Plaza store, she was the sweet Lady quietly helping out around the store, organizing and labeling every.single.thing. in our storage area and cleaning up in the kitchen so it sparkled like her kitchen at home. She gave me the idea of putting those half-circles on the sides of our custom boxes so they could slide open easily. She helped us settle into our new studio and didn't stop telling me how much she loved the space. All that labeling sure came to good use during our move.

To me and my three sisters, she was our precious gift. We are so proud to have had her as a mother. I can’t wait to pull up pictures of birthday cakes she baked for us when we were kids. Our birthdays were such a big deal to her. I remember she had to go out of town for work on my tenth birthday. Before she left, she made sure everything was set, my outfits (I had options, y'all), the food, the party favors, the activities, the cake, everything. At the time, I was sad that she wouldn't be there, but at the same time, I was excited because she'd planned this big 'ole party for me. She ended up making it back into town on my birthday (only God knows how she pulled it off) and my joy knew no bounds. It was an amazing party! She’s the reason I wanted to grow up and do the same for my children. We were the ‘big cake house’ growing up. The one where you always got a big piece of cake at birthday parties.

To be honest, I have thought about closing up shop to deal with everything. It seems so hard when you’re going through something like this. However, this past week, between shifts at the hospital, I found it healing to be able to frost and decorate cupcakes at the studio before rushing back to take over from my sisters. I loooooooooooooove my mommy. Ugh! It hurts! At the same time, my mom loved to say “be positive”, so I will. Je t’adore Maman et je t’aime.

It's a wonderful world of cupcakes

So, 2012 has rolled on by with nary a post thus far. We've been busy catching up from the holidays and putting together plans for the new year. For the first time, we have all our flavors planned out for the entire year. We styled them and are happy with the final 42 flavors. It was a painstaking process shortlisting the finalists and we hope you'll be happy with them too. A new change this year is that we are now offering 12 everyday flavors plus six seasonal flavors. This means that on any given day, we'll have 18 flavors to offer our customers. No more

having to guess what special is available on what day. Or, hearing "heeeeeeeey, is it possible to get Wednesday's special on a Saturday?" Hopefully, this would be a positive change as well.

In other news, we are really loving our new digs. We get sad though when people call us from our old location and ask where we are. We feel so bad that they've made a special trip only to hear that we're ten minutes away. Also, we're getting a lot of pressure to open a storefront but that's a conversation for another day. We're really happy where we are and can't wait to bring to fruition what we've got planned for our new location. Thanks for all your support and thank you for allowing us to keep doing what we love.

Still accepting holiday orders

There's still time to place your holiday orders. We've got a whole team ready to assist you whether you decide to pick your cupcakes up at our new bakery or have them delivered. In addition to our 12 everyday flavors, we've added six holiday flavors into the mix. Our holiday flavors are:

Chocolate Covered Cherry - Chocolate cupcake with cherry buttercream dipped in chocolate coating and a cherry on top
Chocolate Peppermint - Chocolate cupcake with peppermint buttercream topped with crushed peppermint candy
Gingerbread Spice - Gingerbread cupcake with cream cheese frosting dusted with cinnamon sugar and topped with a fondant gingerbread man
Pumpkin Spice - Spiced pumpkin cupcaketopped with cream cheese frosting
Snickerdoodle - Cinnamon cupcake topped withEuropean-style buttercream sprinkled with a dusting of cinnamon-sugar
Snowball - Vanilla cupcake with cream cheese frosting topped with a blizzard of shredded coconut flakes

Give us a call at 404-949-0409 to place your order.
Our holiday hours are as follows:
12/24: 10AM - 2PM
12/25: Closed
12/26: Closed
12/31: 10AM - 2PM
1/1: Closed
1/2: Closed

See you soon!