I am all in again.
Let's do Luke's Diner with Scott Patterson an iHeartRadio podcast.
Everybody Scott Patterson, I Am all and Podcast, one of eleven productions iHeart Radio Media. iHeart Podcast Luke's Diner one on one or two on one interview with some incredible women. Here Georgetown Cupcakes founders. And here they are Catherine Coaleenis Berman, Sophie Kalinas La Montaigne, the powerhouse duo behind Georgetown Cupcakes and the star of TLC's DC Cupcakes. Inspired by their grandmother, Yes, it's family, they opened their first bakery on Valentine's Day
two thousand and eight. It quickly became a global destination for cupcake lovers. And let me tell you, let me do a testimonial right here and now I had one this morning because these lovely ladies sent me two cases, two cases, vacuum packed, sealed, a cooled. I mean, what a process that must be at the at the at the fulfillment center and just buttoned down and tight. And I opened it up and I got through it, and I read the instructions and I knew how special an
experienced this was. You guys thought of everything good on you for that. Uh, And I I took the lid off and I looked down on twelve of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in food form, and I decided on the chocolate. Chocolate, and man, I think I ate that thing and maybe three bites it just it just I just wolfed it down. It was wonderful. So they're they're best selling authors, they're TV personal, they're proud supporters of children's health through their work with Make a Wish,
a cause near and dear to my own heart. I've been involved with them for twenty five years. What a great organizations. And we just recapped season two, episode eight, Gilmore Girls, the Ins and outs of in one of my favorite favorite episodes, and we will be discussing cupcakes, ladies and gentlemen. Ladies. You sent me the cupcakes, and I told you what I thought. You both left corporate jobs to open up a cupcake shop during a recession. I mean, what gave you the guts to do that?
And were there moments when you thought what have we done?
Definitely? So Sophie and I, like you said, are sisters. We grew up in a Greek household. So both of our parents were from Greece. Our grandparents were from Greece, and like most Greek families immigrant families, our grandparents actually lived down the street from us, so when our parents went to work, they would drop us off at our grandparents' house. And so Sophie and I were pretty much raised like our formative years by our grandmother, who baked everything from scratch.
I mean, they had a huge garden in their backyard. Buying things at a grocery store was a very foreign concept for them because they grew up on a farm in Greece. And so Sophie I would follow around the kitchen when we were little girls, mimicking her making all of her cakes or Greek desserts, her breads. And we have this dream when we were very young of opening a bakery. And I remember telling our parents and they said, are you crazy. People in our country are trying to
get out of the bakery. We came to this country so you could be a doctor or a lawyer, work for a big company, and so they were totally set against it, and we were very We were very sad because that was sort of like a dream that we kind of held onto. And even though you know, we went to college. Sophie ended up studying well like other biology in college. I ended up studying politics. We sort
of went on our different career paths. Were still kind of held onto this dream of owning this bakery inspired by our grandmother, and it came at a very weird time in our lives. When you're right, the recession had just hit. We could not get a bank loan to start our business whatsoever. So we were in our late twenties,
early thirties at that point. This has been it's been seventeen years we've been doing this, and I remember we had this frank conversation with each other where we said, listen, we know that over fifty percent of food businesses failed
within the first year. So are we okay if we do this and we completely fail, starting all over again, knowing that we were going to max out all of our personal credit cards to get this thing off the ground, use like the life savings that we had, which wasn't that much, because you know, we weren't we were late twenties,
early thirties. We both looked at each other and we said, yeah, we're willing to do it because we were afraid of always wondering what if, you know, what if it didn't happen, Like what if it did work out and we did succeed, So we took the plunge in two thousand and eight. I remember we we had like no money left when we first opened the business, and we wanted to make a little sign in the window to say we were
opening on Valentine's Day. We passed the health inspection and we're like, we got to open the next day when this tiny signed and so, you know, people came that first day because it was Valentine's Day and they were walking down the street in Georgetown we're located. We were located our first shop and this quaint little street in Georgetown in Washington, d C. And we had a line and people actually came the first day, but we thought, okay, it's just the first day and it was Valentine's Day.
Tomorrow will be different. It'll be very slow because it was kind of chaotic the first day. But the second day more people came, the third day, the fourth day, and we were very shocked and surprised that people actually came, and in a weird way, we really weren't set up for having that much business. Early on, because it's just the two of us and our mother who came to help us for the weekend and ended up staying forever. She never left, she's still here.
You know what that But that's I think that's a plus because that's really charming. If you're standing in line and you know that it's a brand new business and the owners are overwhelmed, I mean, that would give me the incentive to continue to support that business and wait in line a little longer because you want to support that business because you're so happy that they're experience that
you're experiencing this kind of success. I mean, if it's all buttoned down and perfect and sort of you know, I would I'm not say corporate, but maybe automated and we expected this, you know, it's like kind of too much of a corporate experience, but it's there's something very small time charming about it that would make one people want to completely support it and feel like they are participating in the growth of this.
And I do feel that that was sort of the you know, the only advertising we had back then, it was word of mouth, and honestly, I think that's the best form of advertising, is someone has a great experience, they tell like other people, and then those people want to check it out too. So in that way we were very lucky, although there were some customers who were very upset at us in the beginning, and they would say, what's going on in there? Do you only have two ovens? And we always did.
Well. Scarcity is you know, it's it's good for a business, you know, make them way run out when they get there, you know, that kind of thing.
From our perspective that we were scared because sometimes having too much business at the beginning, it's just as bad as having no business at all. We're not set up for it. So I remember in the early days we would pray for rain somedays, so please God let it rain, because it was just the two of us and our mom and didn't keep up.
So when did you realize that you needed Did you bring on more help? Did you? When did you realize? Was that pretty quick? It was within the first month or so.
It was in the first month, and we actually had one of the food editors from the Washington Post come come knock on our door early one morning. I was covered in like read velvet batter and I opened the door and he's like, I'm from the Washington Post and I want to do an article on this jop like we've been seeing lines. And I said, I'm so sorry, we can't let you in. I'm baking back here and we get angry customers. I have to make sure that I have and he's like, no, no, you don't understand. Like,
I'm from the Washington Post. I want to write a feature article. And I was like, I understand, but I'm really stressed out. I had to bake all these comments, so, you know, in retrospect, that was like the dumbest thing I could have ever done. But luckily he stayed. He waited till we opened the doors. He came in, he observed the chaos, our mother yelling at us mes serving the customers, Sophie Frosting, and he wrote this article in the Washington Post. And I think that was the first
major hit that we had gotten. This was back in two thousand and eight when we first opened, within the first couple of months, and then that brought in more people. And then Frank Bruney, who at the time was one of the food writers for the New York Times, the restaurant critic, the restaurant critic had come in unbeknownst to us, and they did a they called us for a fact checked, and Sophie and I were panicking. We said, oh my god, what if he had a horrible experience, Like we didn't
know what he was going to write. But he ended up writing this glowing like little article on us, and that kind of put us on the footy map. So people give people from like New York coming this time around, and we slowly had to start hiring more people, you know, getting more ovens and slowly scaling it. And then the big,
the big thing for us was the television show. And that came about in a very you know, uh, off the beaten path kind of way, where a producer and we're not from the TV world whatsoever, So we had a television producer I guess was in line. He came into the shop and he said what is this place? And I was like, it's a cupcake bakery and he said, oh, I thought they were just giving away free stuff. That's why I stood in this lot. And he said this
place is crazy, like you all this place? And I said, yeah, my sister and then my mother was like there and he's like, do you mind if I film here for a weekend. At that point in time, Sophie and I had been doing like YouTube interviews with local college kids and that kind of stuff. So we're like, yeah, sure, come in, you can film for a weekend. And that
week it was a pretty chaotic weekend. We had some wedding orders going up to New York, and unbeknownst to us, you know when you're when you can mic on, you know, even though the cameras are down, they can hear everything you're saying everything. So they got some good footage and I guess they had taken it to TLC, and before we knew it, they had picked up the first season
of d C Cupcakes. So we had a film crew kind of following us around and we did that for three seasons with TLC, which was really a really great experience for us because it really resonated with a lot of young girls and their mothers too. It's a very family friendly show. Sort of A sister showed a cake Boss. I don't know if you remember that show, but that and that really kind of brought even more people to the Vittoria Baker.
So let me ask you this. As you were beginning to experience the growth. What were the difficulties did you run to some any sort of major like uh oh, you know kind of because there's always bumps in the road, right. I've had a coffee company for nine years and it did not start out the way your business started out. It started out with an utter disaster, and it seemed like disaster after disaster, And so what were the first what was the first real like uh oh moment when you're as you're expanding.
For us, I think, like you said, every day, especially early on, something would go wrong and we would be like we would get buried down on ourselves and say, when's this day gonna come where nothing goes wrong? And then as an entrepreneury, risk that day doesn't exist.
Doesn't exist, And once you make peace with.
That fact, you become a lot happier because we were just it's a lot. It's day in and day out of waking up with this thinking feeling in your stomach and then you re is that is just part of running a business. And so I don't know that there was one major snaff who or roadbook. I think it was day to day to day everything something would go wrong and it's just being able to manage that and
get through that. I know at the very beginning, one of the challenges we face actually turned into an opportunity for us. So because we didn't ship our cupcakes when we first started, like how we sent them to you, but we had customers who were coming in from all over saying, hey, I want to send you to my friends in Texas. I want to send it to my
friends in California, and sorry, we don't ship. They would literally take the pink box, wrote in an f X or ups couch and put it in the meal and the cupanies would are all jumbled up and realized, hey, listen, like the there's a demand for this. People want to send these cupcakes his gifts. We used bigger out how to do this, or else they're going to end up getting all tossed around and arrived like a jumble mess. And so we took that you know experience, and we
designed some packaging. We really worked on it hard, and we figured it a way to ship our cupcakes overnight so that people that's them as nice gifts, you know. And so that was something like a roadblock we encounters. We could didn't do something our customers who wanted it. We tried to listen to our customers. But I think there's been seventeen years of that just failing learning from it.
We like to call them lessons learned, not it's not.
Failures, but you know, no learning opportunities.
They are and there's a law along the way. And I think that, you know, for anybody we always say this funny was interested in starting their own business, whether it's you know, food business or whatever. It's it's kind of it's scary and and I think it's the uncertainty of it, because I think that a lot of people and I think for us too, we just wanted to be guaranteed a day where nothing went wrong, And like Sophie said, it doesn't exist, and every day something and
sometimes be very taxing on you. Oh my god. Every like there's always going to be something, and like Sophie said, it's almost like you have to make peace with it and somehow learn to like cope with all this uncertainty and sort of this this feeling of like what's what's it going to be today, What's going to happen today?
Let me ask you this, how many skews did you start out with on day one.
I think they baked like eight flavors and now our menu has over one hundred flavors.
But we took it was a slow process.
We kind of tried to like grow slowly. I mean, we've been around a long time seventeen years, so it wasn't like all overnight. Definitely wasn't a linear path that we always call it a roller coaster. But over the years we were able to figure out, how are we going to make more, how are we going to experiment with flavors. For us, that's one of the coolest parts of our job, is like coming up with these new flavors and expanding our menu. But at the same time,
we want to keep what makes our brand special. And when people walk into the bakery, especially after seeing it on a TV show. I think when people see something on TV, they had this expectation and you want to live up to it and you want to look them to come in and say, wow, that place was as school as I thought it would be. The staff was as friendly, the cups were as amazing, and we want
them to be able to share that. The worst thing that can happen is to come in there saying wow, that was not what I thought it was going to be and it was disappointing. So I think there's a firebar. Sometimes we're on TV because people have this perception or expectation and we want to meet it.
And this is your store, is your cupcake shops? A place people come in and sit down and they can get they can can they have coffee and tea as well? Ok? Yeah, okay, all right, great? And how many what's the seating for? How much?
Oh it's small. I think we have like four tables inside and four outside.
So it's it's a cozy little place.
Wat yeah, quaint Yeah, absolutely, And have you had have you ever had thoughts of expanding the shops?
We did so for ten years before COVID. We had shops in New York and in Boston, in LA and we ran us for ten years ago. Def page just flies by, and then after COVID we had to make a decision or we're going to renew them or not.
And then we started shipping. So one thing that happened during that's another problem is that COVID had these the restaurant industry and everyone kind of, you know, just totally freaked out, and for us, our shipping business really just took off in a way we would not expect during COVID because people we still wanted to celebrate from a far and so we really kind of double down on our shipping business and found that we can reach our
customers this way. And so I think, you know, like like I said, these these problems are roadblocks turned into opportunities. And for us, shipping was part of our business, but it was like a huge part that after COVID and during and AFTERCD it just became a huge, huge part. And so we've really tried to.
Build that is this United States only a ship in a candidate only.
To us because we do everything overnight. Maybe one day we can go international. We have on time, we have had times shipped international. People actually come into the shop and like literally we'll take like you know, twenty dozen back to like Dubai or all like people take the cup exeterates.
They just put it on their private chat right exactly.
Yeah, actually so much so fun to see where they go because people send us photos of their cupcakes in all these places around the world, and it's as fun for us. How far they make.
It such a great success story. And now so are you as engaged with the store as you have always been. I mean, you're going there every day and you're spending time there every day.
Sophie was just there. She just felt bad.
I literally just I think when you have a food business, you have to stay in the weeds as owners, I think, and Catherine and I are happiest when we're in the weeds, to be honest, because you feel in touch and in tune with what's going on. You're connected to your customers, and we love it. And I think one of the main reasons we started this business is because we wanted
to work together and live our dream. And it's not something one, Hey, We're going to start something and try to sell it a couple of years later and flip it. I mean, for us, I can't. I don't know why I would do if we weren't doing this, and I can't I can't picture do anything else, especially without Catherine. So as sisters, it's been really rewarding and fun. I mean it's hard.
It's definitely trying it, you know some days, but overall, you know, we love what we do, and I think you kind of learn to like live in a chaos like you just it's a constant set of chaos.
We always say, kind of like running a marathon that never ends, because when you own a business, you can't do at the opposite. You're taking it with you all at all times. Right, But I think you know, it's kind of like it was. You know, we have children, but like this is kind of our first baby, really.
And sometimes the chaos is really exciting and other times it's just a giant headache. It's either or.
And it's nice having a business with a sister in that regard because you have someone as your support system. If being an entrepreneur can be a very lonely experience if you're doing it on your own, because it's very intense the experiences. It's not for the faint a part.
We always say that because there's a few people understand like what's going on in your head when you own a business, and when you do with your sister, it's like you have this buddy who's got your back, and you know, we're able to have these like crazy fights
as sisters. We can talk to each other like the way you can not talk to your coworker, and we really make the best decisions for our business that way because we don't have to worry about stepping on each other's toes or how do I deliver this message?
We just say, like it is the feeling.
Yeah, it's like, you know, it's not for everyone to Some people say I can never work with my sister, and some for us. Some people it works for us, it works, but it's not for everyone.
Right, did inflation hit your business? Did the costs? Yes? So how did you deal with that and and maintain your margins?
For us, the egg prices is the rise and the eggs crazy because that's like that's a key ingredient in all of our cupcakes and we bake everything from scratch fresh every day.
So it's hard.
It's very hard, as I think honestly, like I am in all of all the food businesses that stayed in business after COVID, because what COVID did was just it was looking back now, I'm like, how did that we survive? How did anyone survive this?
Not many did? Actually?
Yeah, I know, like sometimes I like, you know, like how do we do? How do we even manage this? And so all these challenges, I mean, they're challenges that all food businesses, restaurants face. That's part of doing business, you just kind of figure it out. I think, you know, for us, Katain R. R. Like we are in the weeds, were involved.
We have a tight team.
We're small, you know, we're we're big. We have a wi reach, especially because of the TV show. But at the end of the day, like you know, we are a tight team, and I think that's how you have to like manage it carefully.
Wow.
Wow, yeah the egg Press we're nuts.
No, right, they whacked everybody. All right. I have to ask one Gilmour question. Okay, yes, if Georgetown Cupcake had opened in Stars Hollow, what would your signature Gilmore Inspire Inspired cupcake be?
Okay, well, so, first of all, we're a huge Gilmore Girl Girls fans. My daughter who is twelve years old, she just binge watched the entire series last year. I mean everyone and even the new one that just came out, I think to meet personally, Like, it's such a cool feeling that I've seen the show, but now my daughter has seen it do the whole thing. So my daughter was like, you need to pick flavors for certain characters
and all this stuff. So I was I was prepared to pick certain flavors for certain characters.
Okay, you want to go there.
For Luke, I was going to do I'll start with you. I was gonna do first. I was going to give him the carrot because it's like very you know, no nonsense, gets the job done. There's no like frills, you know, it's it's like it's good, it's it's healthy, and you know, it just gets it. It gets it done with. With Lorelei, I was definitely going to do the mocha anything coffee related, you know. And for Skie, I was going to do the banana split, just because it's just so colorful, so joyful,
brings like just just happiness to people. For really who I love. She's a tough lady, but I kind of love the grandmother. And I was gonna it. We were either gonna do lavender or gray or lemons because it's very classic, very traditional for Rory. I know, Ror Rory. I was like debating because Rory's a complex character in that she's very classic all American girl, but there's she's
a complicated young lady too. I mean like there's definitely decisions that she's made within the show where I'm like, wow, Rory, So so I would stick with like a classic vanilla, but maybe add a little bit of like Chai Chai vanilla, something that's in there. She's not so straightforward. And then who else I was gonna do? I was gonna do all these like the brooding heart throbs, Velvet.
Kirk.
My daughter's obsessed with Kirk. And I don't know if this is a thing with the young crowd, but I'm like, what is your obsession with Kirk? And she's like, is a vibe? He's just he does these things and he shows up at these different places. For Kirk, I will maybe you like a confetti, but you know, I don't know. I just never know what's going to get with Kirk.
And then and then Paris, I would have to say, you know a chocolate ganoche, which is basically our chocolate barmant and make dipped in ganache, just because it's very straightforward, like to the point, you know, it's for us. We love going into a bakery and seeing what customers are picking him too, because I'm wondering if I could figure out people's personalities by the flavors that they do choose.
We used to have a twenty four hour live stream cuppa camera over the packing counter, so you could log in anyone in the world and see what people were ordering as they went to the boxes. And it's fascinating to see what people order. And sometimes people watch, I'm like, oh, I think I know what they're going to get, and they totally surprised. Well, I would never have thought they would got that flavor Compty.
It's fun to get right, right, right right. You know you have to come back, please, you gotta come back for round two, Ladies, an extreme pleasure and continued success with Georgetown Cupcake. That's in Georgetown, d C. And what's the address again for Georgetown Cupcake.
And Georgetown three m So just come and find us.
Yeah, and what's your website.
Georgetown Cupcake dot com.
Okay, and they ship all across the US of A. Ladies, thank you so much. It's been a distinct pleasure. Uh. And I am gonna go to the gym now and I'm going to do about one thousand crunches to offset the joy, let's call a joy that is now rounded out in my belly a little bit from having a couple of your cupcakes this morning with my with my eggs. Thanks for all the downloads everybody, best fans on the planet, and remember where you lead, we will follow. Stay safe everybody.
Dot Hey, everybody, and don't forget.
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