Magazine Feature Story

Celebrate Cake!
A “Bonnie” Business
By Gretchen Cain
Published: January 2009

Recipe for Sweet Success:

• Identify your passion and make it your life’s work

• Stay focused on the task at hand, eliminating distractions wherever possible

• Details, details, details! Have a business plan and follow all the steps to completion

• Know your target market and cater to it with an innovative marketing plan

• Change your plan when necessary to fill the specific niche needed

• Set high standards for your product or services and adhere to them

• Utilize mentors and networking groups to provide advice, support and business leads

When Bonnie Yarbrough of Celebration Cakes is working on one of her masterpieces, time is suspended. She is in her creative zone and the only moment is her beautiful cake; anything else that goes on in the outside world can wait. It is her affinity for mastering minute details, and the ability to stay on task, that has allowed Yarbrough to achieve what every entrepreneur ultimately wants: to identify one’s passion early in life and cultivate it into a successful business.

Yarbrough said her experience didn’t come from a professional cooking school, but from her mother, who trained her to bake as a child and young adult. Her mother was a great believer in adding little touches that make the difference between a baked good that is created and a mass-produced item. “For example, add almond flavoring to your cherry and apple pie fillings and when making a spice cake, such as pumpkin, carrot or apple, add maple flavoring to the batter,” shared Yarbrough.

“I taught myself how to decorate,” said Yarbrough. “Decorating cakes became my passion, and because I enjoy the creativity so much, it has always been a great stress reliever for me. It is so very rewarding to see your cake in the center of a ballroom, beautifully adorned for the occasion and to know you have delivered the finale, the centerpiece.

“It is like the Christmas Tree for the winter season. Nothing can take that feeling of accomplishment away from you. It is my weekend high, every weekend,” Yarbrough said.

Yarbrough recalls that she was ready to structure her own company in December 1999, a new business for a new millennium. “As a matter of fact, I was the last corporation formed in Florida in 1999,” she said. Her storefront on Walsingham Road in Largo opened at Sabala Plaza on Valentine’s Day, 2000. Serendipitously, it was the anniversary of the very first wedding cake she had ever made, Feb.14, 1996.

Yarbrough’s target market continues to be the bride for wedding cakes, as well as local residents requiring a special occasion cake. Yarbrough’s husband and business partner, Ted, selected the name Celebration Cakes, pointing to the fact that “all cakes are for celebrations of one sort or another.”
Although Yarbrough may have preferred to work out of her home or on a part-time basis, those options weren’t available. “Home-based food preparation is outlawed in Florida. One must have a separate entrance into the kitchen or food preparation area,” she said.

In order to defray the expenses of the store, it was necessary for Yarbrough to be on-site fulltime. Additionally, the landlord required a certain number of hours each day for the storefront to remain open.

Yarbrough’s longtime mentor for Celebration Cakes is Alice Gallace, owner of Gallace Italian Restaurant on Indian Rocks Beach. “Alice came into my storefront one day and had a vision of how my store should look,” said Yarbrough. “As I had money and time I implemented her visions. Alice still comes into my store today and is very pleased with my progress,” she said.

Like most savvy business owners, Celebration Cakes has a website to capture the customer who prefers to shop online. Still, Yarbrough finds dealing with customers face-to-face preferable. “Online shopping is so impersonal and everything about a cake is personal: its flavor, its filling, its color of frosting or the adornment on it,” she said. “This information is nearly impossible to relay online. However, having the site www.celebrationcakes.biz for browsing and enticement is wonderful,” Yarbrough said.

It is the personal contact with customers and members of networking groups that helps Celebration Cakes to keep its edge over local bakeries in the area and also the grocery stores.

Yarbrough has belonged to local chapters of many business networking groups, such as BNI and PLN, Women in Business, Monthly Mingles, Florida Barter, and Bay Area Bridal Association. For the first four years of business, BNI met at Celebration Cakes each Thursday Morning. When the group’s attendance became too large, they moved to other facilities.

Yarbrough said Celebration Cakes has maintained a very stable income over the past eight years, neither expanding nor reducing its services. Yarbrough attributes this to being unable to hire another manager or locate someone who wants to share the storefront in order to grow their own portion of the business. Life circumstances have presented a recent challenge, the diagnosis of Ted Yarbrough with Stage 6 of Alzheimer’s disease. Taking care of her husband is a top priority, yet Yarbrough has no immediate plans to sell her lucrative business or retire.

Yarbrough advocates having a business plan to keep on track. Scheduling is critical, since the cake business has two seasons: Feb. 15 to June 15, and Oct. 15 to Dec. 15. According to Yarbrough, it is during these two time periods that the largest number of brides are married in the Tampa Bay area.

Yarbrough advises entrepreneurs to set a standard for their products or services and to not deviate from it. “Find out what sells the best and perfect it,” she recommends. Celebration Cakes’ signature product is the Seashell Wedding Cake, which can be adapted for any flavor, with any filling, for any color scheme.
Additional advice to entrepreneurs from Yarbrough: “Offer samples of your products. Volunteer to be the guest speaker at any event. Watch your expenses, especially your advertising dollars. Be able to alter your marketing plan.”

Yarbrough said she opened Celebration Cakes with the intention of selling bakery supplies and offering lessons in decorating, but then had to alter her plans when she found there wasn’t a need. “Instead, I produced the quality of work the public demanded. Everyday was a new beginning, something new to make, to decorate or design. My passion for pretty became the backbone of my business,” Yarbrough said.

Practice has made for perfect over the years and Yarbrough’s work has been lauded in publications and showcased at events such as NASCAR. She has earned the referrals of fine restaurants and hotels alike. Because of her reputation for creating cakes that are tastefully elegant, Yarbrough was chosen to provide the wedding cake for a Martha Stewart Destination Wedding at the SandPearl Resort at Clearwater Beach on November 9, 2008. As she does with all her cakes, Yarbrough personally delivered her four-tiered chocolate and raspberry swirled creation, designed to feed 135 wedding guests, and adorned with Swarovski crystals, silver beading and flowers.

Yarbrough’s reward was much more than publicity generated from Martha Stewart Living Productions; it was the overwhelming satisfaction of seeing the bride and groom’s delighted expressions and knowing she was part of an age-old tradition. “The wedding cake is the very first thing that is shared as a couple, and represents their commitment to one another. It should be a celebration cake,” she said.

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