A friend and I may have an opportunity to rent out a kitchen at a local establishment in our city. If we do this we can start advertising and get a business going. My question is, Where would we do taste testings for brides?

I set up an area in my home for tastings. I work out of my church kitchen and even though they have a room I could use, I prefer to have it set up at home. We converted our sun room into my craft/cake area. It has its own entrance, so really no one actually enters my home living area, they are truly separate. I bought some old ice cream parlor type chairs and refurbished, added a cute table from IKEA. I keep it set with a cute cake stand and plates that I've picked up at thrift stores and garage sales. I love vintage so I try to stay within that feel. People don't mind coming to my home bc I keep my sessions private without interruption.

I have a home business, but i don't feel comfortable with people coming for consultations to my home. Plus i have two kids under 2 that make things a little more difficult

Our local community center allows local businesses to use their facilities for free. Our local one has 3 smaller meeting rooms (hold 40-50 ppl) and then one large area too. It might be worth looking into if you have one nearby.

thanks those are good ideas!

I might here some backlash for this...but I always go to them. I don't want people coming to my home or to my rental area because its rather drab and unprofessional. And people really appreciate it when I make it convenient for them, and I book the wedding every time. I read a book once and the idea was to provide A TON of value to the customer, then sell them, then upsell them and then provide more value. I may change in the future, especially if I open a storefront but for now people seem to really like it.

I have met people at the local Panera cafe, and have gone to their homes.

I go to a coffee shop nearby. I've had a few requests to travel to the customer but I don't want to get into doing that...with traffic and stuff around here, I am not really good with travelling 30 mins to an hour just to MAYBE get a client.

So we meet at the coffee shop.

They come to my home. I have a new home and only one little girl who loves the whole cake thing and keeps to herself during the meetings, so I'm good there.
I also live about 30 minutes out of town, so they have to really want to come to me, which weeds out the ones only looking for free cake.

I rarely go to a client. Personally I'm not comfortable going to someone's home and I don't like public places.....too many distractions, and no thank you to hauling samples all over town and wasting my gas for a tasting. I love having a private area for clients to sit and relax but I know not everyone has that possibility at their residence. I was lucky my DH has a contractors background and engineering degree, also my dad is a builder sooooo all in all I have a great space that was geared for my exact needs. I think my space is uber professional and my clients always compliment it!

I used to do them at my home but even though my husband took the boys, there were too many unknowns...sometimes they'd come home too early, or one time the (at-the-time) baby was napping but woke up early with a poopy diaper and stunk up the entire house when my client was trying to eat her cake (she never called back) so that was the last tasting I ever did at my house. Bleh.