Friday, July 25, 2014

Online Ordering for the Café is Now Available! For a limited time, save $1.00 off your first online café order.

http://www.realbuttercream.com/cafe-ordering.html

Now you can order our scrumptious café food online!


All of our main products are available in the online store, including our new Flatbreads, which can be shared, and new goodies for the Kid's Menu. Customization is also available for certain items, such as "Add BACON". Why not? :-) Try it out soon, and save $1.00 off your first online order!

Payment for online café orders is made when the order is placed, just like our bakery online orders. One great feature for our café online orders is the option to place an order with friends, which allows each person to pay their share of the bill separately. Just select the "with friends" tab, place your order, and share the link with your friends! We hope you'll find this new ordering option easy and convenient. Feel free to comment if you have any feedback you'd like to share!
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Thursday, July 10, 2014

Why We Charge for Wedding Cake Consultations


A couple of months ago, we started using an online appointment booking software program called Appointy to book wedding and custom cake consultations. It looked like a great way for us to keep on top of appointments, while at the same time, giving our customers the convenience of booking their own cake consultations. After a few weeks using the system, however, we noticed that we had a much higher frequency of "no shows" than ever before (50%). It was frustrating. It seemed that the ease of booking an appointment online translated into an ease of not showing up for the appointment. Engaged couples that really wanted to meet with us couldn't because those appointment slots were occupied by "casual" customers. So, we made the tough decision to charge for wedding cake consultations.

Many of our baker friends from around the country have adopted this policy for the same reasons. Following suit, we are now charging a $25.00 fee for wedding cake consultations. This consultation fee will be applied to the wedding cake balance if you choose to book with us. It includes up to four cake sample plates and one hour of our cake consultant's time. A cake consultant is one of the owners (Beth or Becky), or a wedding cake decorator. During the consultation, the cake consultant will help design a cake that suits your colors, theme, and taste. We'll give you a quote on a range of designs and do our best to work within your budget. At the end of the consultation you may choose to book with us, or to think about it - leaving a sketch and estimate in our wedding estimate book.

Like we tell all of our brides and grooms, when it comes to wedding cakes, time is money. The amount of time required in creating a wedding cake is much more than with our other cakes. A great deal of the time we spend on your wedding cake is in the consultation phase. When people choose to not show up for wedding cake consultations, it impacts our bottom line - and that, in turn, impacts our customers. In order for us to keep the price of our wedding cakes reasonable, we need to insure that our staff members aren't setting aside their time unnecessarily. Of course, we understand that paying the fee will alienate some of our potential customers. Some engaged couples just want to know what our cake tastes like - and that's all. For those that just want to try cake, you can call in an order for a "wedding sample to-go". There is no fee for this sample, you just need to place an order for it ahead of time. We also sample our cakes several times a year at bridal shows and community events. It's a great way for you to see what all the fuss is about :-) without the formality of a wedding cake consultation.

Here are some of our upcoming events, where we will have FREE samples of our cakes:

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