- Written by Madelaine Bullwinkel
A fresh take on "Let them eat cake".
What was once considered Marie Antoinette’s clueless offer to “let them eat cake” is becoming a reality in Chicagoland thanks to a cranky 3-year-old's demand for chocolate cake. As she tells it, the child’s mother, Tianna Gawlak, is accustomed to untimely demands for cake from her family. On this occasion, as she was driving home from her appearance to sign a debut picture book, The Chocolate Cake Book, she had an idea.
Tianna realized she could satisfy her child’s craving by creating a one-serving cake vending machine. Her timing was prescient for this unlikely entrepreneurial undertaking. The year was 2020, and Covid restrictions would soon force small, local bakeries to close, creating a gap for self-serve machines to fill. Tianna used her training in healthcare delivery to contract with bakeries and search for a customized vending machine.
Sprinkles Cupcake had already proven the self-serve food concept in 2012 by installing an ATM kiosk in the side of their Beverly Hills bakery. Tianna’s new business, The Bakery Box, began selling fresh cakes and macarons from a refrigerated vending machine in 2021. The cakes sold well thanks to strategic marketing on social media, and Tianna mastered such start-up issues as how to box each cake individually and refill the machines daily.
The Bakery Box now has four Chicagoland locations from River North to the Chicago Premier Outlets in Aurora some forty miles west. What seemed like an unsustainable business model is continuing to be highly successful in a post-Covid world. Sprinkles Cupcakes now has thirty-eight outlets, many are freestanding, in malls, airports, on campuses and other high-traffic locations. ATM food service kiosks can also be found in The United Arab Emirates (Dubai/ Abu Dhabi), the United Kingdom, Australia, France and Canada.
WISHING YOU ALL THE CAKE YOU CRAVE IN THE NEW YEAR!
