Monday, November 24, 2003
Croissants and Coffee Cakes
Manager has decided we will, after all, offer croissants, because she's discovered a knack for making them.
And we experimented around with a variety of coffee cakes.
Sunday, we set up a Cocoa Bar with coffee cakes to test out the Cocoa Creator idea inspired by the movie Chocolat, and it was a smashing success. We've been asked to cater a Cocoa Bar for other events.
The more we do this, the more confident we are of our future success. This pre-test marketing of our ideas and products is giving us a number of things: confidence, of course, but also a dedicated customer base. With a dedicated customer base, we'll have more leverage when asking for the start-up loans. It helps to have something other than the house as collateral.
Yes, I'm aware that much of the bakery equipment will also be seen as collateral - the ovens, proofing boxes, the floor mixers, and such.
We'll have intelluctual property (our recipes for the low-carb breads, the structure of our Cocoa Bar, Pastry Buffet, and Stage, and our other recipes), real property, a good credit history, business management education, good employees (including a CPA and advice from a business attorney), and the house to offer the loan officer. Taking this year to complete everything, have fun testing our recipes, and building up a solid reputation will be a plus.
The only downside is that it will take that much more time before we can offer more than token help to the homeless around here. We started Sandwich Saturdays several months ago as a way of getting the word out among the homeless community of what we were planning - and to help us find their hiding places so we can give them food at the very least, and at best a stable life and a future.
Our expansion plans for the Cracked Cauldron will always include assistance plans and provisions for helping others.
