Aunty Ellen's Sweet Treats | Leominster woman translates homemade cakes into a growing business
Photo/Amanda Roberge
SLICE OF SUCCESS: Ellen Fay, center, the owner of Aunty Ellen's Creative Confections in Leominster, with some of her employees.
In a time when countless business owners are struggling to survive, Ellen Fay is trying to keep her head above water, too.
But for the successful baker — otherwise known as Aunty Ellen — her struggles come from the fact that her business is growing faster than her ability to keep up with it, and her life raft would be to simply meet demand.
“We are so busy all the time,” she said of her 5-year-old cake business. “All of my numbers have tripled since this time last year.”
The Leominster-based bakery, Aunty Ellen’s Creative Confections, is known locally as a great place to stop in for a cupcake, cookie or slice of some sweet treat. A sandwich board on the sidewalk advertises the cupcake flavor of the week, which has proven to be a huge draw and also has helped cupcake sales to skyrocket — once people get a taste they are likely to order them by the hundreds for their next event. But while those small walk-in sales are sprinkled throughout the day, the bakery operates largely on special-order cakes.
“You can’t walk in here and buy a cake,” Fay explains, adding that her storefront at 18 Central St. has not really evolved into the kind of place where people come for coffee and conversation, but is more of a stop-in destination for people to pick up their goodies. “Every single cake we make has been ordered and we are doing everything from scratch, tailored directly to the customer.”
Fay is fully aware of how the cake business works and knows exactly why she is thriving. The majority of bakeries — particularly supermarket bakeries — order their cakes already baked, assembled, frosted and frozen. They remove the cake from the freezer, throw some decorations on it and put it in a case for shoppers to peruse. But Fay’s customers have a more discriminating sweet tooth and she takes pride in being able to satisfy them.
“Their prices are much cheaper — I’m not going to lie,” she admits. “But people come here knowing they are going to get something really special, and that they are going to get exactly what they want.”
And while people will cut certain corners to maintain their finances, she says that having a delicious and special cake to celebrate special moments is a small pleasure that people are ready to embrace.
Aside from the usual birthday parties and other celebrations, the bread and butter of her business is wedding cakes — and it was a wedding cake that set everything into motion in the first place. More than 25 years ago, Fay’s friend asked her to make her wedding cake, and she accepted the challenge. That first cake — which served 500 people — launched word-of-mouth advertising for a business that Fay hadn’t quite started, but soon enough she was making several cakes a month.
When she was laid off from her corporate job following the World Trade Center bombings, she went to work with her father at his manufacturing business in North Central Massachusetts and had lunch with him one day at the Wachusett Village Inn. She became privy to an inside scoop: The inn was looking for a new cake vendor for its booming wedding business.
“The door just opened and the timing was right,” she said. Her relationship with the inn, where she continues to do frequent tastings, became a strong foundation for her business and she hasn’t slowed down since.
She opened a 400-square-foot space in Leominster and outgrew it within two years, which led her to her current shop. But the growing pains have resumed, and there is a good chance that Aunty Ellen’s Creative Confections may have to find a new home once again. With a staff of five full-time employees and a healthy, growing client list, orders are pouring in daily.
“I don’t like to say no to people,” she said. “So I am trying to find new ways to keep up."
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