I've been approached to partner up with the local bowling alley to provide cakes for their birthday parties and am looking for advice on how to go about this. the owner doesn't really have a set plan for what he wants to do and wants me to come up with some sort of proposal of what I think would work best.

I'm wondering whether it would be better to only offer limited cakes that they would choose from, or if it should still be custom cakes for each party, or a combination of both at different price points?

I think that he wants me to deal with the customer's directly so he doesn't have to play middle man, so they would be paying me directly. I'm just not sure where to start with this. any ideas?

I would think it really great if you could do the entire party.
Cake, cupcakes, balloons, tablecloth, punch...you get the idea.
Since the cake is the major expense why not?

He's already got everything except cake that he is offering, he'd like to add cakes to it I guess.

We have a similar offer with a local place. We have decided to do a brochure with 4 cakes to choose from. They can pick color & flavors from a limited list.

We are going to put 4 prices & the number of servings.

If they would like a 'custom' cake they can visit our website & call us for a regular order.

I think more people will place an order if it is simple & easy like booking a party at a bowlinga alley. We are basically looking at it like an add on to the package they are ordering.

We dont want a million calls from people who are not in our range or looking for a custom cake.

Just some thoughts. I look forward to hearing what you decide to do

That sounds a lot like what we were going for, you had a great way of writing it out! Thanks for your reply.

Are they going to pay you directly or pay the bowling alley?

I worked in the bowling industry for many years. Many of those years I was the food a beverage manager. My experience has been that 95+% of the bowling party parents want to bring their own cakes (usually a 9x13 cake in the pan or one of the grocery store cakes) These are people that are looking for a package (per person) deal with little or no interest in how the food tastes or looks.

If you do this I would suggest that you offer something like mentioned above and not expect the venture to net a lot of traffic.

Sorry!

We would have them pay us directly for cake 'a' or 'b' etc....

Glad to hear from a professional on this one! We weren't sure, but felt that way too.

Thanks for your experience! It definately comes in handy here. I won't get my hopes up too far. If nothing else I'd like to get a dummy displayed in there and some business cards out. I'm still pretty new (got licensed in Feb) and will take any advertising I can get!

Used to work in the office at the ice rink where my daughter skated which is where the birthday parties were booked. The ice rink worked exclusively with a local bakery. There were 3 different b-day party packages: bronze, silver and gold which ALL included a cake. Each package just had something a little more to it like, pizza and drinks, goodie bags for each guest, private lesson for the party. When the party was booked we filled out a simple cake form. They had two selections for decorations: either Mickey/Minnie Mouse or a Mighty Duck (the ice rink was the home of the Mighty Ducks). The cake choices were: choc, white or marble; filling was cookies and cream or strawberry and I think one other choiceFilling and icing was made with pastry pride/whipping cream. The cake only came in one size which I think was like a 12 round (not sure) if it was a LARGE party then two cakes were ordered.

I would talk with the bowling alley and do something similar to this. Make sure that they will not allow outside cakes to be brought in that way you will always have cake orders. If you limit the selection then you can control things more. Maybe they will allow you to put a sign, flyers or something at their snack bar or in the B-day room etc saying who their cake supplier is. That way when they fall in love with your work and quality of cake you can get future orders..

I totally agree with what Auntie had to say. That is why you need to make sure that they will not allow any outside cakes to be brought in. You can do this by giving them a cheaper rate than if they were to walk into your shop and get a cake and in exchange this is what I need from you.

Just my two cents.

Good Luck I hope it works out for you!