Montgomery, NY

“So, I started, when my daughter started eating”. As many parents do, Randi Caroll just wanted her daughter to eat her fruits and vegetables, and as many children do, her daughter wasn’t having it. Instead of dishing out what we all loved to hear when we were little, “you can’t leave the table until you finish your vegetables”, Randi took a more creative approach. She began experimenting with different recipes that she could hide her daughter’s veggies in.

As unexpected as it was, Randi’s creations weren’t only a hit with her daughter. Randi’s friend suggested she try to sell them at Nature’s Pantry. Randi didn’t seem to think much of her baking at the time, but what she hadn’t realized yet, was that there was a demand not only for nutritional treats for children but also, for those of us with a sweet tooth. To Randi’s surprise, Nature’s Pantry did, in fact, want her product.

From there, Nature’s Pantry advised Randi to do a Farmer’s Market, where they told her there was also a need for this type of product. At this point Randi’s claim to fame were chocolate chip cookies she had been making with beans hidden in them, but after getting her product into Nature’s Pantry, she noticed people were really looking for more gluten-free products. This was in 2007 before gluten-free was plastered all over everything. Randi had no idea what gluten-free was, but she began fooling around with different recipes to find something that worked.

“I never really measured anything, I was just like, ‘this looks like it’s going to work’, and it did!”

After doing more farmers markets, people started to ask Randi if she could do cakes, “I couldn’t do cakes,” she told us, “so I said ‘sure, I can do cakes’, and I went and I took a class at Michael’s.” Pretty soon after this, Randi’s new cake business began to take off, it was much more demanding than she originally thought it would be. Keeping up with the business out of her own home was no easy feat, there was a chunk of time when she needed to take a break because of it. By the time her daughter was in Kindergarten, she knew she needed to make a big decision, find a job, start a bakery, or finish her degree, which had been in political science.

Her first bakery was just a storefront, that she opened in 2012, around the corner from where she is located now in Montgomery. Randi ended up growing the cake decorating part of her business much more than she had originally intended, so much so, that she couldn’t do much in her original store anymore.

She told herself that if she went to fill out a loan application for a new space, and it got approved, then it was meant to be. Randi said she was going to take the path of least resistance, if she couldn’t get the loan then she would close down her store and rent kitchen space instead. She hadn’t been selling enough in the old store to stay open, so by renting kitchen space she could continue to do cakes and “have a life again”. However, the path of least resistance led her to open her new spot on Union Street. She signed the lease in March, opened in May, and then hit the ground running.

Eat This Bakery has breakfast, lunch, and dinner, to-go. They serve Breakfast and Lunch all day every day, and dinners are Wednesday nights. Their specials are posted for the week on Sundays, on their website. They do private parties, catering, meal prep classes, cupcake decorating parties, edible slime classes for kids, and other seasonal classes such as Christmas ornament making, cookie decorating, and lollipops for Valentine’s Day. Of course, Eat This also does custom cakes, and if you make it to any of the cupcake festivals in May, you can bet on finding them there. They always have Gluten free and vegan options, as they pride themselves on being able to accommodate everyone.

The bakery’s storefront is filled with gifts from syrups and soaps, to mugs and aprons, all made by local women. We asked Randi what she would like for the future of Eat This Bakery. She told us she wants it to become a place where, when your friend has a bad day, you can come in and get the perfect cupcake and a funny card to make them feel better. She hopes to eventually be able to expand to have a party room. As for the local products she is selling now, she wants her storefront to become more of a local marketplace. Randi would like Eat This Bakery to be a place for the community that is much more than just a cake business.

“It’s a lot of trial and error, I’m sure it would be a lot easier if I knew what I was doing, but I love food, I’ve always loved food, and I’ve always loved to cook so it really just worked out, and I love it, I love what I do, I couldn’t do it if I didn’t”.

CONTACT

Phone: (845) 457 – 7788
Email: eatthisbakery@yahoo.com
Location: 8 Union Street Montgomery, NY