Okay, I have a question. I recently got my kitchen licensed to be a legal home bakery. I've given away a few cakes, and also gotten several orders from friends and some of the places I donated, but I'd like to get my name out there a little more. I'd LOVE to have a sort of cake open house...

While it's still in the planning phases, I thought it would be cool to have a dummy cake decorated, Photos of my cakes displaying on my TV (because it will read my camera card), and obviously samples and coffee. I figured it could be a 2 hr thing, and that I could offer a coupon to those in attendance as well as perhaps do a door prize for a cake gift certificate.

Does this sound like a fruity idea? I can really picture it in my head, and thought I could invite my neighbors, the ladys I meet with at my daughter's school and a few other friends (especially some new ones). I thought I could also invite them to bring a friend, it gives them a chance to get away from the kids fr a while as well as taste my product and see my abilities?

Okay, I'm rambling, but let me know if you think this would be a good idea! Also, if anyone has done it, can you tell me if it was successful?!

Keyshia

I will be watching the for replies, as I was thinking of doing something similar once I'm formally open for business (friends, neighbours, former customers etc).

I had thought: coffee, wine, water, small appetizers and obviously cookies and cake (probably mini cookies and small-sized cupcakes). Will pay my daughter and niece to waitress for me.

The coupon and door prizes are great ideas (rig the door prize to make sure your mother doesn't win!!)

I thought I'd wear a T-shirt with my business name on it, and send everyone home with a goody bag including my business card as a fridge magnet, plus a few bus cards to share.

Looking forward to hearing more ideas...

This sounds like a great idea! Maybe put out some flyers at different locations to help draw a bigger crowd. I would do coffee, tea and punch. And maybe set it up like a bridal show with mini cupcakes in different flavors and different frostings. Also have different albums with lots of pictures of cakes that you've already done along with the cake dummies.
Good luck and I'll be looking forward to seeing how it goes!! Maybe do it in time to get all the graduation and late summer/fall wedding cakes.

Excellent Idea, I will be watching this thread for more replies. I could suggest having soft instrumental music in the background whiles you talk about cakes (like an art gallery).

I have a store front so this might be different................but maybe not.....I do a wedding cake open house once a year, my last one was about 3 weeks ago, and it went GREAT!

I have wedding cakes on display(dummies) and I sample out all my wedding cake flavors. I also did a drawing for a free wedding cake........mostly to bring in people. (it worked)

if you go to my website and click on "Wedding Cake Winner" then click on the link there you can view the slide show from the event. (not sure how to post it here)

www.somethingsweetcakestudio.com

Thank you guys so much for the vote of confidence. I really thought it would be a cool way for people I know to come taste the cake (especiallyf or those that have not yet tasted it) and to bring friends that could taste it. I'd like to do it at the end of March/beginning of April if time permits, but I'll have to JUMP on it! I like the idea of the instrumental music, I figured I'd play some jazz and thought i coudl have a slide show of my cakes going on the TV. I also thought it would be cool to decorate my dummy cake for display and have different cakes for them to taste. I'm SO excited, I can't wait to get it all together. I also liked the idea of just haivng punch, tea and coffee...something to just bring them in, not too long...if that makes sense. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Keyshia

my licensed home kitchen opened in january and i had an open house. i invited any one that knew about me working on it, family, friends, church people, neighbors etc. we had from 1-4 and had about 50 people show up. a great success i felt. we had snacks, cupcakes, truffles, sugar cookies and drinks. it was wonderful and i would recommend it.

oh yeah we also had 2 computers hooked up running a continuous loop of my pictures

i did an open house and cake tasting in 07 and it was a great success! i am hoping to do it again this year.

here's a thread about mine, if you'd like to take a look at how i did it.
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-179091-open.html+house

hope it helps some!

good luck!