30/04/2026
This is a friend of mine. We met at Cake International, when we were entering at the same time and shes also called Nicola!
If you are ever in Westgate-on-sea pop along and see her shop, rammed full of curiosities and bakes!! Times are hard and having an actual bricks and mortar shop is , in this economic climate, exceptionally hard!
This is something that I hate having to do because life's bloody hard for everyone at the moment. This is not about moaning over the odd bad day. In business, that's just something you have to expect and ride the storm. This is about the storm we've been riding for the past 6 years. None of it has been easy, but we rethink and evolve and move on to the next idea.
It's been quieter than usual since last year, if I'm honest. Don't get me wrong, we get really busy days and queues out the door, but it's not consistent. With the rising costs of literally everything, we need that bit of consistency to survive. I worry that we are losing our bricks and mortar shops all over the country. Where would we be without our beautiful local shops? I love this little shop, and I just want to be able to keep my head above water. Thus is mine and jakes safe space. It's more than just a shop to us. It's EVERYTHING.
We have loads of baked cakes on the counter daily. We just need to sell more. I know people will say we are the wrong end of town or get a bigger shop, but a) I love our shop, and what's the right end? And b) I simply can't afford to move if I wanted to.
Times are really hard, I'm not looking to become a millionaire, unless anyone has a lottery win they don't want? 🤔😆......I just want to be able to plod on and survive this particular storm 🖤⚡️✨️
