Currently my bakery is open by apointment only. I make only cakes, cupcakes & cookies, and everything is custom made to order. I've thought a lot about opening my bakey for regular business hours so people can walk in & buy something out of the display case. If I open full time, I may decide to add muffins, and a few other baked goods to my agenda as well (wanna get that breakfast crowd!), maybe even some pies too. I don't mind committing the extra hours, but my only main concern is making all this stuff to go into the display case.....what if it's not bought that day? I hate the thought of having waste, yet I have always made everything fresh & am just not sure about letting things sit there for the next day (especially since I'm sure business will be slow at the start). I'm sure some things are okay for a day or so, but how long do you leave your items in the case for? Afterall, you figure people may go home & have the items sitting in their kitchen for an additional day or so as well. Do I just not make much so I run out of goodies before the day is over? Do I just consider the waste as a cost of business?
Anyone out there have a full time bakery that can help me out?
I assume everything made in the bakery is that day. I would be PO'ed if you sold me something that wasn't that day unless identified.
If you solve this problem you will solve every bakery that ever was main problem. I would suggest keep your menu small. Get some killer muffins, scones, cinnamon buns, cookies, and see what sells. It's a trial by error thing.
What I would suggest is, keep a good daily record of what sold. On the record you also want weather conditions, any large events that are going on in the area. Basically anything that will effect your sales.
Lastly, find a good food bank.
Mike
do you have a refrigerated case?
the cakes in a cold case are good for 4 days......of course less in a regular case
i used to have stuff for walks in too when i first opened, i had cupcakes and cookies in a regular case for 2 days.
i had alot of waste at the end of the week...i took stuff home and gained a ton that first year.
the bakeries i worked at before kept cakes in the cold case 4 days too....cakes last longer than you'd think, the icing seals in the moisture.
I assume everything made in the bakery is that day. I would be PO'ed if you sold me something that wasn't that day unless identified.
hahahahaha You haven't worked in bakery, have you?
ha ha ha leah!...i was thinking the same thing!....people who haven't worked food service would be shocked at alot of things!
I assume everything made in the bakery is that day. I would be PO'ed if you sold me something that wasn't that day unless identified.
hahahahaha You haven't worked in bakery, have you?
Exactly what I was thinking! 
I look at the pics of large bakeris (see "Modern Baking Magazine" .... you can get it for free) and there is no way they could afford to stay in business if they had to throw out miles of shelf-space products at the end of every single day.
i have had some fussy customers insist that i bake their saturday cake....saturday morning....how the heck would that work?
i do the baking thursday...freeze....frost and get saturdays orders to decorate friday...and decorate saturdays orders ...saturday.
theres just not enough time to do everything that day....some have gone elsewhere ...where they tell them they bake their cake that morning...i guess you could do that if you only had a couple of cake to make...but if you're gonna pay overhead, you gotta make a lot cakes, and theres just not enough hours in the day to do it that way.
Don't laugh, but at the instore bakery where I work, packaged muffins are kept for 7 days. Refridgerated cakes buttercream 10 days. When they go out of code, we cut them up and repackage them as cake slices for another 4 days. Frozen cooler cakes 30 days.Buttercookies in just a regular case, until they sell. Did I mention that I don't buy very much from them, and I am great at checking the made on date at all stores now. Now back when I worked in a real bakery, in the cooler we kept buttercream cakes 5 days, whipped cream cakes, pies ect.. 3 days. Hope this helps.
Well, you could always start off small and when you run out, you run out, but the next day you know to make a bit more. If you have leftovers, mark them as "Yesterday's treats" at a discounted price. I know of a few places that do this.
If ppl. know qty. is limited, they'll make it a quest to get in there early. We do that with my favorite carnitas (fried pork - oh so good!). I know if I go in at noon/1PM there is the chance there is no more.
Thank you all so much for your advice! I think I will plan on starting it out small so that everything is as fresh as possible & see how it goes from there. I really like the idea of the "day old specials". Thanks again! 
While you're figuring things out, if you do happen to have leftovers for a particular day maybe you could donate them to a soup kitchen or food bank in your area. I'm sure they would really appreciate it and you wouldn't feel so bad about not making money from them.
We have a ;arge variety of things we keep in our bakery case. Some things we can keep for next day some things we throw at the end of business.
cinnamon rolls, cinnamon raisin cinnapple and caramel pecan rolls are made fresh daily. They dry out quickly in the case.
Jumbo muffins can be held for two days
Danish is on a individual basis. as long as the pasrty is still flaky we will hold them.
Cookies hold till the next morning because we bake those throughout the day to keep up with demand.
bars and brownies can hold for more than one day. we limit how many we cut and put out at a time so edges don't dry out.
We also do desserts by the slice and we usually sell out before we would have to throw out.
We don't have cakes or whole pies sitting ready to just grab. Must preorder because that gets expensive.
As for throw aways my employees love that benefit of taking things home. And I also will package things up on Saturdays when we will be closed for 2 days and take to area nursing homes, hospital and to area vendors to butter them up. Works great!!
I have a great true story about day olds. It gets kinda complicated to explain but this one place I worked only left their doughnuts out for sale for one day kinda sorta--they fried in the afternoon (whaaaat?) So then they let them stay out 24 hours till the next afternoon.
They then dutifully bagged them put the new 'day olds' in the back of the line of all the other days olds from all the previous days gone by 'cause nobody wanted to buy soggy fried dough made the afternoon before.
So therefore you could only get fresh doughnuts in the late afternoon when everyone is thinking doughnuts right? 
And you could never even got fresh 'day olds' there.
I'm no help, but our local bakery sells their goodies for half price at close every day...
I'm no help, but our local bakery sells their goodies for half price at close every day...
So do people wait until the end of the day to get them at half price?
In Lee Iaccoca's book, he told how he stopped a practice that car dealerships used to do. Dealerships always reduced the car prices at the end of the month. Everyone knew this. So no one bought cars at the beginnng of the month. Car dealerships ended up with too much inventory so at the end of the month, they "had" to have a big sale and reduce the prices.
The car dealerships created their own Catch-22. They trained their community to think "Don't buy the car on the 5th .... you'll get it cheaper on the 25th."
So I'm curious if this practice is a self-imposed Catch-22 for bakeries who do this. ("Don't buy cookies on your lunch hour ... wait until after work and you can get them for half price.") THe 'sale" price now has become the 'regular' price because that's the price they are actually sold at 
I don't know. I've never seen it advertised, but if I happen to be there at close they ring up cheaper.
wanted to add that the place is busy in the day but not in the evening.
I'm no help, but our local bakery sells their goodies for half price at close every day...
So do people wait until the end of the day to get them at half price?
In Lee Iaccoca's book, he told how he stopped a practice that car dealerships used to do. Dealerships always reduced the car prices at the end of the month. Everyone knew this. So no one bought cars at the beginnng of the month. Car dealerships ended up with too much inventory so at the end of the month, they "had" to have a big sale and reduce the prices.
The car dealerships created their own Catch-22. They trained their community to think "Don't buy the car on the 5th .... you'll get it cheaper on the 25th.
So I'm curious if this practice is a self-imposed Catch-22 for bakeries who do this. ("Don't buy cookies on your lunch hour ... wait until after work and you can get them for half price.") THe 'sale" price now has become the 'regular' price because that's the price they are actually sold at
That's why I wouldn't offer a free doughnut coupon. Everyone would just wait and come in late to get the coupon!
I used to work in a large department store in the 80's, and stores NEVER had as many sales as they do now. An investor bought the rival chain, which had a bunch of different stores under their umbrella, and started running sales all the time. Other stores had to do the same to keep up, and twenty years later it's sales every weekend. Needless to say, the guy who bought the rival chain went bankrupt, but the cycle stayed in place because people had been trained to shop the sales. (That's a little simplistic synopsis of the whole thing, but it's the same point.) Don't train people to buy cheap, or they'll never pay full price.
Yes. I cringe when I see the flyers from some retailers nowadays that discount a lot before the holiday--we didn't used to do that either. They discount up to 75% afterwards which makes my eyes roll back in my head.
Breakfast items, which are at room temperature, are made fresh every morning. Cupcakes, brownies etc...are kept in a refridgerated case and we turn them every 36 hours. The cupcakes for the day come out at or slightly before noon, and they are disposed of the following day at close. ( 10PM to midnight). We don't sell " day olds", we take them to the police dept break room one night and the fire dept the next.
The only sale we do is 1/2 price cupcakae monday. I have the girls bake up all the odd bits of batter from the weekends cakes, ice them with the left over buttercreams and fillings, and sell them for $1.75 instead of $3.25.
well, if i were going to do a store front walk in type thing, i think i would only offer certain things on certain days. Say monday is cinnamon roll day, tuesday they could get your awesome chocolate chip cookies, wednesday, might be cup cakes etc..
This way you wouldn't be making the same thing everyday, and you could get a variety out there and see what sells and what doesn't. I would also, do the day old thing too.
JMHO
well, if i were going to do a store front walk in type thing, i think i would only offer certain things on certain days. Say monday is cinnamon roll day, tuesday they could get your awesome chocolate chip cookies, wednesday, might be cup cakes etc..
JMHO
The single bakery in my home town did that. They had these great chocolate cake doughnuts that they only sold on Friday. I made sure I planned plenty of time to get to work early enough on Friday to get one of these from the dept donut box!
My favorite is the chocolate cake doughnut covered with toasted coconut like a german chocolate-ish doughnut --oh my--but that wasn't the question was it. Ok well I'll even eat those day old! Not a problem.
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