Hello all,

Would love any input at all from how people went about transisitioning from home baker to commercial kitchen space. Do people just start in commercial kitchen space selling cakes only or did you move right to a kitchen with retail space for selling all sorts of cakes/pastry? At what point did you know you had enough clientele to move to a larger space?

Personally I am far from ready for commercial space, although technically my licensed basement cake kitchen is 'commercial'. Kind of a 'halfway house' between home kitchen and big commercial space, I guess!

It's an interesting question...here's a bump for you.

Hi there! I did the ol' bake from home for friends, family, and then it branched out and out and out... for about 8 years. Had a regular job, and did cakes in the evenings.
I finally went ahead and rented a bit of space in a commercial kitchen, and operated there for about a year to segway into retail space.

It worked like a charm, and my phone was ringing the very first day I opened up shop, retail. Business has snowballed since!

This was a great way to do it, for me, cuz during the 1st year of business, while I was in a legal position, I could get my name, logo, website, contacts, and just get my business all tweaked up the way I wanted it before I really hit the scene with my storefront. It also provided me with time to find the right space to rent and still operate while my space was being updated to my specifications; no downtime, no "closed" weeks for renovations or moving. Also, time to shop for equipment, etc.

This worked great for me; good luck!