Has the specialty cupcake craze been replaced by the high-end Bundt cake business? In some cities around the country it has. Now, a brother and sister team, Craig Moore and Elizabeth Novak, is testing the market in Baton Rouge with a Nothing Bundt Cakes outlet, which opens Saturday on Corporate Boulevard in the space previously occupied by Fashionista boutique.
As its name suggests, the store peddles specialty bundt cakes in various flavors and sizes, and has proven successful in its 14 years in operation. Since the first NBC outlet opened in Las Vegas in the late 1990s, the company has grown to include 50 franchise- and company-owned stores, mostly in the West and Southwest.
It’s a niche product, to be sure, but Moore says the model has been successful because a Bundt cake is a specialty product, which allows for slightly higher margins than in, say, the pizza business.
“We can sell at a higher price point because people don’t skimp on celebrating,” says Moore, who is president of Nothing Bundt Cake Enterprises, now based in Dallas. “They don’t skimp on special occasions.”
Moore knows a little something about franchising and the pizza business. A south Louisiana native—he and Novak grew up in Covington—Moore headed the CiCi’s Pizza chain for eight years and is still a part-owner of the Dallas-based company, which has 650 buffet restaurants around the country.
Moore also owns six Nothing Bundt Cakes stores in Dallas. These days, he’s helping Novak, a local math teacher, launch the first of the company’s stores in Louisiana.
Novak, who is on sabbatical from her position at Runnels School and is owner of the local store, believes this market is tailor-made for the company’s comfort-food confection.
“It’s a party town, and there are lots of celebrations,” she says. “Mardi Gras, football games—special occasions like that.”
