When I met with the owner of Elm's Bake Shoppe yesterday for a wedding cake tasting, I was appalled at how unprofessional she was. She appeared at first to be very friendly, but once she saw that I was taking notes on a spreadsheet that compared bakeries, she became very defensive. She started to "trash talk" one of the bakeries on my list and said that no one else makes cakes from scratch in the city except her and the Cake Shop and continued on about how terrible other bakers were. I said that was why I was comparing the tastes of the cake. I mentioned that I had grown up on Lucy's Cake Shop and she said that if that was the case, her cakes were not for me because I could not get Lucy's prices anywhere on her side of town. Again, I explained that was why I was comparing tastes, not sides of town. She said she "could care less" about getting my phone number to call me later and see if I was still interested because she gets so much business she no longer has to do that, like smaller shops will. It was made very clear that my business was not wanted or needed. She obviously did not have the common sense to be a gracious hostess and did not think that welcoming the competition-instead of trashing it-would reflect better on her. Besides the fact that she told me that a 7 oz. bottle of sugar pearls cost $75, even after I told her that I looked up a 4 oz bottle online for $7.50, and after she told me that everyone in town charges a $50 delivery fee (which they don't), her meeting with me only encouraged me to find other bakeries and continue to spread the word about how unprofessional and deceitful this bakery is.
more