What, in your opinion, makes for a boutique style bakery/bake shop?
I have heard that term used a bit lately and wondered what my fellow CC'ers thought about it.
Since I am contemplating opening a shop I am trying to decide if my business fits into that model or if I want it to.
Appreciate your input here! 
To me, a boutique cake shop is one that offers high-end custom designs and high quality cakes. As opposed to your run-of-the-mill bakery who offers basic cakes. It will depend on your area what your local market will bear.
I think is a great idea! Don't be afraid that you won't have a massive clientele since your niche would be certain kind of customers. I have a bakery in my town that makes very fancy desserts, croissants, and they have classical music on speakers etc and is always crowded.
I agree that 'boutique' implies high-end and high quality. You want specialty items that they can't find at wally's. However, I would not say that that equates to 'fussy'. High-end and high quality can be elegant and simple without being fussy or overdone.
I would also say that when considering what your local market will support - don't rule out a specialty shop just because you may be in a small town. I took a chocolate making class last summer at LA Burdicks in Walpole, NH. It is a very small town that even people who live in NH haven't always heard of. But Burdick's has a store and cafe there (along with their production facilities) and they have a top notch place! Very high quality chocolates, pasteries and food. There are also a few other high end stores and restaurants there. So just because it's a small town, doesn't mean it can't support a high-end business.
So just because it's a small town, doesn't mean it can't support a high-end business.
That is definitely true! Some of the small towns around here are known for their bakeries. People will drive there on the weekends just to visit the bakery. They often place orders for their Christmas parties too!
I have a boutique and some of my prices are high but I also offer lower price items and I am turning away business my daughter is full time and I have a high school student and we can't keep up. All we do is cakes ,cakes more cakes and decorated cookies. My front room is a show room with wedding display cakes. I am located on a busy street and have people coming in all the time to see what we are all about and end up ordering. This weekend we have 1000 cookies 600 cupcakes 11 weddings 10 occasion cakes if your ready to work everyday go for it. Its now 11 days straight I'll be glad when this week is over by the time its finished it wil be 16 days. Then the next week starts more cakes and another 1000 cookies decorated. HELP!! wedding cakes start at $5.50 per serving I bumped the price up $1.50 just to stop the calls but it didn't work there still booking.
Well I figure I better take all the business I can its gonna slow down sometime for a rest I hope. I have only been opened just over a year and its gone crazy I'm testing the market as they say, Gotta do want a gal has to do to make a business work. I'll be taking a rest sometime in Sept and have my daughter taking over of a week or so.
yeah we drove 2 hours to a bakery in California for a famous pie.... it was good but I don't know if it was that good...
boutique bakery sounds awesome though! good luck!
To me, a boutique is where you find personalized service and one of a kind, unique items. The store itself would not have enormous square footage but would have an intimate atmosphere where, upon walking in, you realize there is something special going on. I think the decor itself should reflect a personal style- be it classic, whimsical, sleek- always having an energy reflective of the owner and the items sold. Have fun!!!!
Pugmama said it best... that is my dream right there.. ahhhh someday. 
Boutique makes me think that the customer is also getting an emotional "experience" along with being treated to fabulous cakes.
The experience is perceived value. I think of Godiva Chocolates and Starbucks. There's an atmosphere and feeling when you step inside either of those stores and that is because the experience was well thought out and extends to everything inside the store.
I think a boutique bakery is a fabulous idea and a way to create a theme and experience for the customer. It sounds awesome.
Someone who does this very well in the cake business is Confetti Cakes.
I, for one, would never classify Starbucks or even Godiva as a boutique!! Good grief, they're chains. Everything is mass-produced. The McDonald's of chocolates, and the K-mart of coffee.
I can get a Starbucks coffee at my local Starbucks, or go across the street to the Starbucks there and buy the exact same thing. That is in no way a boutique...... that's fast food. They've glutted the market. Needless to say, I don't shop at chain stores/restaurants (except for the grocery store and some other stuff). I'd rather go around the corner and get my coffee at that indepently-owned little coffee shop where the owners themselves stand behind the espresso machine and bake the carrot cake (using real butter).
A boutique offers one-of-a-kind items. Stuff you can't anywhere else. Top shelf.
Well, I think of "boutique" as something with a roped-off area and dirty old men, but I just finished watching "Betty Page", so I'm not much help. But yes, personalized, fits in there. Not necessarily where a group of gals would go for a cup of coffee and sit for a while and then take home a couple of cookies for the kids and a sweet for her sweetie, but somewhere that you would order and pick up a specialty cake or treat that you have thought out and planned, not just picked up on a whim. But like I said, I'm probably not much help...
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