f there was a ""zero stars"" button, I would press it! This is by far the WORST experience I've ever had with a birthday/cake! Jerry (the owner) is not only outright rude, but he made racialized comments repeatedly even after I informed him he was completely out of line. As for the cake, the most common comment by those bold enough to be honest was, ""IT'S HIDEOUS!""
My daughter was turning six this past weekend. She wanted her picture on a cake and we thought it would be fun to order one of the cake gallery's ""portrait cakes"" so that we could have her head on the body of a princess. I submitted the photo to Jerry and he ensured me they would be able to do a beautiful job. He took my credit card information and we set a delivery date for the cake.
When Jerry arrived at my home 1.5 hours before the party was set to begin, I was mortified when I saw the cake. In fact, I began to cry and after looking at the cake himself, Jerry gave me $20 off the price on the spot! He told me to call him when I calmed down to determine a refund amount.
Being at the party was even worse! When the cake was revealed, my daughter's friends began asking her why the cake looked like that and why she did that. The parents of the children at the party were asking me who it was supposed to be and why I would get her a princess that was not brown like my daughter. My daughter was clearly uncomfortable and upset when her friends began asking her these questions and we rushed through the candle-blowing so that we could cut the cake and be done with it! Needless to say, this is NOT the reaction I was going for!
I called Jerry today to inform him about my experience and ask that he refund the cake. When I told him that not only did the picture look nothing like my daughter, but that the princess wasn't even my daughter's complexion at all, he said, ""your daughter doesn't look like a Black child."" Ummm...are you kidding me?!? I didn't realize we were still living in the time period where a white man gets to determine what constitutes a ""black child"" or not! When I informed him that African Americans came in all shades and that he was in no position to make this determination, he only repeated his ignorant statement that my child did not ""look Black."" I was LIVID! I stated that even if my child didn't ""look black to him,"" that he should have just made the picture on the cake the actual complexion of the picture I sent, as opposed to PINK! He agreed that the complexion was wrong but informed me that I should have explicitly stated that my daughter was Black when making my order! What?!? Really? If his staff would have simply done the portrait in the image of the photo given to them, the image would have clearly been a shade of brown and not pink!
Jerry did not apologize for his ignorant statement and instead repeated the same offensive thing twice more before the end of our conversation. He then said he would not refund the cake but would send me a check for $20 even though he admitted the cake was incorrect and HIS error effectively ruined this portion of my daughter's party! He stated that had we not ""used"" the cake, he would issue a refund. What were we supposed to do an hour before the party? We didn't have a choice but to use the hideous cake! It was either that cake or no cake! I would rather have NOT used the cake, saving my daughter and our family the humiliation!
As a PhD student at UC Berkeley studying identity, I cannot explain how angry I am to experience this kind of racial interaction with a white man in 2011! I will definitely utilize every resource I have to publish this experience and make people of all ethnicities, who wish to see an end to such offenses, aware of Jerry's behavior and the cake gallery's stance on racial and cultural sensitivity! I left my conversation with Jerry saddened, disgusted and outraged! I will post an update with a link to future publications.
Disgusted,
kihana
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