We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Erin Holloway a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Erin, appreciate you joining us today. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

Our bakery decided two years ago to offer free personal birthday cakes to children in the foster care system in our county. One of our close family friends grew up in foster care. One day, while she was in our store, she shared with us that she never had a birthday cake growing up. No one had ever taken the time to recognize her on her birthday. That sentiment really touched us. It’s hard to think of a child growing up, seeing others having parties and cakes on their birthday and never getting to have that experience of their own. That is when we decided to start offering a free personal cake to each child in the Blount County foster care. They are able to choose their colors of icing, sprinkles, cake flavor and a personalized message for the top of the cake. It may not seem like much but to one child that hasn’t ever had anything like that before, it may mean the world to them. Last year alone, we made over 500 of these cakes. We are very happy to be able to offer this. I hope that maybe this will be something a child can receive and realize that there are people out there that do care about them and want them to feel special on their birthday.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I co-own Art of Cakes Bakery with my Mom, Angela. We have owned this business since 2012. We started the business in the kitchen of our home. Within two years, the business expanded so much that we ended up leasing a storefront in Maryville. We have been in this storefront ever since. We stay busy year around. We offer custom cakes, wedding cakes, cupcakes, cookies, brownies and much more. We also have an interactive website where customers can shop and order online at www.artofcakesbakery.com

I believe what sets us apart from other bakeries is that we have the best recipes on the market. Everyday, we have customers walking in telling us that our cakes are better than anywhere else. We are also very reasonable on our pricing. We use all butter in our icing recipe and have some what of a cult following for our icing alone.

We have made many cakes for celebrities staying at a very well known resort in our area. They now come in regularly when they are in the area. We are very proud that we have so many return customers. We look forward to making cakes for everyone for years to come.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I believe what has built our reputation within the market is the fact that we use great ingredients in our products. Our icing is made with all butter. It is a much higher quality than most of the other bakeries use in the area. Our customers love this. There just isn’t a way for anyone to be able to use cheap products and produce a high quality product.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

I met my business partner when I was born. My mom is pretty awesome. She has always supported me through any crazy idea I have come up with. We have tried numerous odd jobs in the past from buying & reselling garage sale items on Ebay, to cleaning and reselling golf balls, to selling magnetic memo-pads door to door. No matter what we tried, she was always there giving it her all. The bakery has succeeded so no need to fish for golf balls anymore haha.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.artofcakesbakery.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArtofCakesBakery