My husband and I will be opening our storefront soon in our town. We have already been operating with an inspected kitchen and have been selling pretty much everything you can that a bakery does but we do it outside on the side of the road for 4 years, so we know the needs and wants and the costs of operating a bakery type business. What I am asking is, for all you current or out of business bakery owners...what are the mistakes you have made in this business and what would you do over again if you could??
Thank you for your feedback in advance! Thumbs Up!

I took too much work to soon. Get you feet on the ground before you go full out with cakes. Or else you will feel like your drowning.

Not charging enough.

If you will be hiring employees, be very careful. Most employees have an excellent rationalization system that tells them why it's okay to steal. "I'm worth more than they are paying me," or "Business owners are rich and need to share the wealth," or simply, "I need money."

Not all employees are like this, but you can't tell by looking at them. Just because someone smiles at you and tells you they are wonderful, does not ensure a good experience for you, the wealthy business owner.

The friend I trained in sugar craft with opened her own shop - and I asked her the same question - what would you do differently in hindsight. She said she was disappointed with the volume of paperwork and ordering and posting pictures onto websites etc. that she has to do - because she does not trust anyone else to do it. She said that she felt that she got into the business to enjoy making cakes and that because of her lack of ability to delegate to sensible staff - that paperwork was taking over. So we are trying to work a less labour intensive paper trail system for her as well as training her to delegate more!