“In the event you can dream it, you are able to do it.” ~Building employee (singular) who’s constructing the Cake Bake Store on the BoardWalk at Walt Disney World when requested if the restaurant and bakery may open earlier than Villains Land at Magic Kingdom debuts in 2030.
I’m kidding, after all. Not solely did he not say that, however I truly noticed as many as three (3!!!) building staff concurrently on-site on the Cake Bake Store over the course of the final week. Not solely that, however I noticed seen progress taking form between my visits to the BoardWalk as I took breaks from the 2024 EPCOT Meals & Wine Pageant to take a look at the undertaking.
I assume now that building has concluded on Blue Ribbon Corn Canine, the opposite colossal building undertaking at BoardWalk, sources have been reallocated to expedite the Cake Bake Store. If it solely took like a yr to repurpose a waterside kiosk, they need to be capable to end the conversion this restaurant by 2030–piece of cake!
When it comes to fundamental background for many who haven’t been following this multi-year saga, the Cake Bake Store by Gwendolyn Rogers is a brand new desk service restaurant at Walt Disney World that truly ought to open in 2024. (For actual this time.) It’ll supply sit-down eating and a bakery, changing ESPN Membership on the BoardWalk.
The Cake Bake Store Restaurant will characteristic each savory and dessert menus, together with afternoon tea service, in a whimsical environment that enhances the magic of the idyllic allure of Disney’s BoardWalk Inn that friends know and love. This new idea will serve up storybook candy treats and dreamy desserts, as The Cake Bake Store by Gwendolyn Rogers makes a “seaside splash” at Disney’s BoardWalk.
(All through this publish are building images I took over the past week of August and first week of September 2024.)
Along with building progress, now we have a brand new growth on the Cake Bake Store, which filed one other new allow to start work on putting in the restaurant’s kitchen throughout the final couple of weeks. That is considered one of a number of building permits that’ve been served up with a view to principally rebuild ESPN Membership over the course of the final couple years.
The development allow for the kitchen lists Johnson Lancaster and Associates, Inc. because the contractor. That is, unsurprisingly, a top-rated meals service contractor famend for its experience within the area of economic kitchen design, building, and renovation. The corporate caters to a broad spectrum of purchasers which includes restaurant house owners, quick meals chains, and catering companies throughout the US. They’ve executed enterprise previously with each Common and Walt Disney World.
I don’t know the way lengthy a business kitchen usually takes to put in, but it surely most likely doesn’t matter since nothing is regular in regards to the Cake Bake Store. Even assuming a standard industrial kitchen could possibly be accomplished in a number of weeks, it may take a number of months or a yr on this undertaking. When the Cake Bake Store introduced they’d open in a yr, I feel they meant a canine yr.
Earlier this yr, the Cake Bake Store began hiring. I expressed shock at that growth on the time, because it advised (primarily based on normal lead occasions for different Walt Disney World eating places) that the Cake Bake Store can be open by June. Clearly, that didn’t occur otherwise you wouldn’t be studying this publish.
On the time, I pegged the opening someday between October 2024 and Spring 2025 primarily based on progress up till that time and the idea it’d proceed at the same tempo. I can not overstate simply how slowly work has progressed. It’s going to finish up taking about the identical period of time to reimagine ESPN Membership into Cake Bake Store because it did to construct EPCOT Heart!
The Cake Bake Store by Gwendolyn Rogers was beforehand slated to open final yr, earlier than updating its official web site to early 2024, then simply 2024. Now merely says that it’s “Coming Quickly.” How quickly might be a matter of perspective. In the event you’re going from the daybreak of recorded time, Cake Bake Store debuting alongside Villains Land in 2030 continues to be fairly quickly! It’s all relative.
Joking apart, between the newest developments with hiring and permits, paired with my observations of building progress, I’m now much more comfy predicting that Cake Bake Store truly will open in 2024.
I nonetheless suppose the early finish of the vary is someday in October. With that being a month away and work nonetheless being executed to the outside, it looks as if a secure guess that the restaurant gained’t open this month. Even someday in October (that means anytime between Walt Disney World’s anniversary and Halloween) can be a reasonably aggressive timeframe for a undertaking that has been something however aggressive.
The later vary of that “someday in 2024” prediction would clearly be New Yr’s Eve, which is the final day of the calendar yr. Given every little thing we’ve seen (or not) within the final two years with this building undertaking, that’s the perfect guess. Effectively truly, the actual finest guess might be the opening slipping into 2025.
Nevertheless, at the same time as somebody who has turned the Cake Bake Store right into a punchline, I’m way more bullish. Despite the fact that I feel each effort shall be made to get it executed by October and conference/group occasions season, my exact prediction is that the Cake Bake Store opens by mid-November 2024.
The explanations for my newfound confidence within the opening timeline are twofold. First, there’s stupidity. I haven’t discovered my lesson with this undertaking and am foolishly pondering this time shall be totally different.
Second, I spent an inordinate period of time watching work during the last week, and it truly is transferring in an expeditious method. In actual fact, that is the quickest I’ve ever seen building occur on this undertaking. It now seems prefer it’s being constructed by sloths as a substitute of snails!
It’s not quick quick, like Epic Universe, but it surely’s a tempo not seen earlier than with the Cake Bake Store.
It looks as if there’s a brand new sense of urgency, and with that, I’d hazard a guess that there’s additionally a robust need to get this restaurant open in the course of the peak quarter of the yr. (Take into account that it is a third occasion undertaking–that means that they dictate the development schedule, but additionally that they’ve been paying lease to Disney this complete time. That may’t be low-cost!)
I assume we will see what occurs, however that’s my prediction: that Cake Bake Store opens between October and December 2024, with the most probably goal proper in the course of that vary, in mid-November. In fact something is feasible, however I actually don’t suppose it’ll get delayed once more into 2025.
For many who haven’t adopted this undertaking intently, the Cake Bake Store building has someway moved even slower than CommuniCore Corridor in EPCOT. It’s spectacular, in its personal type of unhappy method.
Within the Cake Bake Store’s “protection” (type of), this has been far more than a easy conversion. The construction of the previous ESPN Membership was been taken right down to the studs, and the cupola atop the constructing was totally rebuilt. Despite the fact that it’ll find yourself wanting pretty much like what it changed, a variety of work was put into reworking and remaking the venu.
Nonetheless, that doesn’t totally clarify the torpid tempo of labor. Have been this a standard undertaking in regular occasions, it might’ve opened final yr. However it wasn’t. It’s my understanding that there have been a number of points getting it completed. The large one was labor shortages for building tasks in Central Florida.
One other was the mandatory prerequisite of finishing a brand new 31,200-square-foot business bakery in Osceola County. The offsite bakery is crucial to supporting the Cake Bake Store, and is the one option to produce the quantity of baked items vital for the restaurant whereas ensures high quality. The BoardWalk restaurant kitchen will focus solely on the savory menu objects.
The Cake Bake Store is finest identified for its colossal 3-layer desserts, every of which takes as much as six hours to finish as a result of they’re all hand-stacked, hand-decorated and hand-cut. The Cake Bake Store sells 12 varieties every day. Because of the variety of desserts, anticipated quantity of the BoardWalk location, and labor-intensive nature of the desserts, the business bakery was vital. It’s our understanding that they first centered sources on the business bakery, and now consideration has been redirected to the BoardWalk restaurant.
Truthfully, listening to about that colossal business bakery provides me a little bit of pause and makes me concern that the Cake Bake Store has overextended. That story instantly jogged my memory of Ample Hills, which took on an amazing debt load to construct a colossal manufacturing house that was method greater than wanted. That dragged down their total enterprise, and led to the closure of the BoardWalk location–and eventual chapter.
Hopefully the one parallel right here is the placement at BoardWalk. From every little thing we’ve heard, the Cake Bake Store’s present eating places in Indianapolis are money-printing machines, and it looks as if this shall be a smash success. However on the identical time, simply because the merchandise are expensive doesn’t imply the enterprise is worthwhile. Particularly if there’s an amazing debt load from taking 2+ years to construct a restaurant and business bakery.
In any case, hopefully building continues on the present clip and the Cake Bake Store opens in Fall 2024. We will’t wait to eat right here!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What’s your predicted opening date/month/yr for the Cake Bake Store by Gwendolyn Rogers? Am I loopy to suppose it may open as early as subsequent month…or in 2024, in any respect? Excited for this new bakery and restaurant or will you miss ESPN Membership? Do you agree or disagree with our evaluation? Different ideas or considerations? Any questions we may also help you reply? Listening to your suggestions–even while you disagree with us–is each fascinating to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas beneath within the feedback!
