Neil Goldberg - Nothing Bundt Cakes Ride-Along & Interview
Neil Goldberg - Nothing Bundt Cakes Ride-Along & Interview
The Highland Park Chamber of Commerce tagged along with Neil Goldberg, owner & operator of Nothing Bundt Cakes, for his morning deliveries earlier this week.
Check out the full interview below.
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HPCC: What made the two of you, you and your wife, decide to start this business and run with it?
Neil: Well, it had always been a life goal of mine, and became one of Bonnie’s too, that we would one day have the opportunity to have our own business and to work for ourselves. It’s a scary proposition but the more we thought about it we realized there’s never going to be a time that everything is going to be perfect, so let’s just look for what we think we would enjoy and let’s give it a shot. When we found that the Deerfield Nothing Bundt Cakes was available, and we lived in Deerfield we just thought it was meant to be. So, we took the plunge, and I came in full-time. Bonnie is also a nurse, and she gradually came in to where she works the store and is also still a part-time nurse.
HPCC: What motivates you as the owner and operator of Nothing Bundt Cakes to handle all the deliveries?
Neil: Well, it’s so important to us that our business is a very personalized service. We want it to be very ‘mom & pop’ operated, and let customers know that we are involved in the day-to-day operations. Since we are surprising people in most occasions with our deliveries it’s very important that we get everything right; we get to the right address, we get to the right house and on time. That way I can make sure everything goes well. And also, there’s nothing better than seeing the excitement on someone’s face when you show up at their house with a cake to celebrate, whether it's their birthday or an anniversary or whatever special occasion, there’s just something very joyful about it.
HPCC: What’s your favorite cake flavor?
Neil: It’s between lemon and snickerdoodle. Then my favorite seasonal is probably either the key lime or the Oreo.
Fun fact: The GPS in the Bundt Mobile is now named Snickerdoodle.
HPCC: What occasions and special moments might someone consider ordering from Nothing Bundt Cakes?
Neil: Cakes are great for the obvious ones like birthdays and anniversaries. Also, they are great for corporate gifting. Right now, we are going to make a delivery at a high-end apartment complex that gives our Bundtlet towers to their tenants when they renew their lease as a thank you. So, it’s great for that whether you’re in sales and you want to thank someone for trusting you to do the deal with them, or for someone giving you a referral for business. Or sometimes just a thinking-of-you gift. Or a way to tell your staff that you appreciate them. There’s so many...what’s nice is, cake is always joyful and happy.
Valentine’s Day is coming up and what’s a sweeter gift than a cake. We can make a tower; we have decorations for that. We have little sweetheart decorations for the Bundtinis. And we have a heart-shaped decoration that we put on the 8- & 10-inch cakes.
People get our cakes for holidays. We’ll get some for Easter coming up. Graduations are great too. We can make bows in the colors of the school they are graduating from or if someone’s going off to college doing something to celebrate that. A lot of people get the cakes as a sort of unveiling of where they’re going to school. And they’ll have a cake that shows the school's name and colors.
HPCC: What kind of customizations can you do?
Neil: Our cakes are all our bundt cake-style cakes but we have the availability to do something called Build-a-Bundt so we can customize the decorations that we put on the cake. And then if someone has something specific they need, then we always try to work with them to come up with something that will fit the theme.
HPCC: If someone came in with dietary needs, what can you offer them?
Neil: We do have a gluten free option. It’s our chocolate chip cookie flavored cake. It’s actually a staff favorite of ours even though not everyone needs to be gluten free in our store, it tastes like cookie dough. So that’s a really popular one we have. Also, our cakes are all kosher certified. So, if you keep kosher our cakes are kosher dairy. And if someone needs to be dairy free our carrot cake is dairy free, but unfortunately, you have to have it without the frosting for it to be dairy free.
HPCC: You said you have five children. Do they love to help at the store?
Neil: Everyone has at some point in time has worked at the store. When we first took over my oldest stepdaughter was just graduating college and she came to work for us as our store manager. We went through training together. All the kids have either helped as a guest service rep or helped with deliveries or at some capacity has worked, so they get to see what it’s like to have a family business.
HPCC: Tell me a bit about your fundraising efforts. You and Bonnie love to be involved in your community.
Neil: We do a lot of fundraising efforts. We will have sales at different high schools where we’ll sell for different clubs or the student council. We do fundraisers at hospitals. We make a lot of donations for different charitable organizations and groups around the area whether they need dessert for their event or they’re looking for a raffle item and they want a gift certificate. We try to say yes whenever anyone asks if it’s something we can do. It’s important to us to be a part of the community and help other people.
HPCC: Is there an appreciation day today?
Neil: Oh, yes! Today, we had a request from Deerfield High School because it’s school counselor appreciation week, so we donated Bundtlet towers that could be given out to all of the staff in the counseling center there to thank them for all they do to help our students.
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Thank you to Neil, for generously sharing your time with us and for all the ways you brighten our community with your kindness.
