Today we’d like to introduce you to Donna McDaniel.
Hi Donna, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I started my business 25 years ago in my home kitchen testing out cake and dessert recipes where my friends were getting chubbier taste testing my many trials and errors.
I was also catering with my friend and fellow singer many of our friends parties and I knew I loved to coordinate and plan events of all kinds.
Oh by the way, I was a professional singer for 25 years and sang backup and lead with some amazing musicians and performers. Motley Crue, Billy idol, Toto, Kenny Loggins, Glen Frey from the Eagles. I had an amazing career traveling the world and I did that for 10 years. I decided that I wanted to settle down and still sing but just not on the road. It is a really great experience but that is a long time to be gone.
I started my business and never looked back. We rented a beautiful location and built our kitchen and cute little bakery.
Most of our clientele at that time was word of mouth and I still to this day have clients that we did their wedding, baby showers, All kids birthdays and then the kids Weddings etc. I am very proud of that what I call legacy clients.
15 years ago my husband Tom came to work for the company after the company he had worked for closed their doors.
He has been instrumental in growing our business and always keeping us above water and the books balanced.
We have a great team of chefs ,cake designers and staff that have been with us 10 plus years. So very proud of all of them.
During covid We bought a friend of mine’s English Tea Company, We create lovely High tea parties in private homes and venues. Bridal showers, baby Showers and also lovely wedding teas. We own 150 vintage English bone China mix and match and 100 pink lady Carlyle all matching tea sets. check us out at Anyone for Tea Catering on Instagram and our website by the same name.
We are doing tea parties every weekend and my next goal would be to find a venue to create these beautiful tea parties in our own lovely space.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
In the beginning it was tough small business funding.
We used our home equity to fund us and build the shop.
Then, two years after we opened the financial crisis hit in 2008=09
We were able to navigate that we slowly grew from there.
Covid was an obvious obstacle, but Tom managed to navigate the PPP loan and the SBA disaster loan ,as well as the various grants that were available businesses effected by covid.
It took awhile but we are finally getting back to normal business.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
What sets us most apart from other like businesses is our customer service. We always love talking to our clients to make them feel seen and heard.
Our wonderful staff that cares about making sure everything is perfect.
Were small enough that our clients don’t feel like just another number but were large enough to cater events up to 2,000 people.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
Perspective clients can reach us by email ,phone or text. We are very easy to get a hold of.
We work with great vendors who we collaborate with and we know they have the same work ethics that we do.
Pricing:
- Every event and cake is unique so we do custom proposals
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @BDSELA @Anyoneforteacatering
