Owner's name: Beckie Taylor

Business: Lovelies Delights

Location: 43 High Street, Mold, CH7 1BQ

Telephone / website: 01352 757836 / www.loveliesdelights.com

Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 9am-3.30pm

When did you open and why? It all started with a love of cake. As a child I loved baking with my mum and grandma, this passion grew during my GCSEs and A Levels as I had the opportunity to learn cake decorating in my food technology course.

After finishing school, I went to university to train as a primary school teacher, expecting the road ahead to be teaching but my heart and passion for baking continued to grow.

My cake makery was opened in August 2014 from my home kitchen. After many a wedding cake and a few birthday cakes too, I was ready for another challenge, for something new.

The eatery was opened in January 2019, developed out of a passion, not just to offer heavenly cakes, but also to create a homely environment in which to enjoy them. Our vision is to recreate time honoured classics, experiment with new flavours and to showcase the most delicious produce Wales has to offer. We are passionate about our local produce from our organic Fairtrade coffee (roasted in Ruthin) to our local jams and chutneys (produced in Mostyn) to our organic eggs (laid in Northop) and love that we can showcase the produce in our makes.

Why did you open in this location? Spurred on to create an eatery, I chose the market town of Mold to be the base of my first shop.

I chose Mold because it's a thriving market town. Mold already has a diverse selection of independent shops and has huge potential to gain an independent foodie status.

The hunt began and I found the perfect shop (or so I thought), after contacting the estate agent to view the property and agreeing to view another shop (not that I was remotely interested) as well.

Sometime later that shop I didn't want was the shop I fell in love with. The three months of renovating started, the shop was stripped from top to bottom and built back together. In January 2019, Lovelies Delights was launched with a view to create something special.

Tell us about your business/what do you sell? We are more than a coffee shop and a refreshing alternative to a tearoom. We offer organic Fairtrade coffee, locally sourced loose leaf tea and signature cakes, accompanied by fresh, handmade food. From breakfast to lunch and afternoon tea, our food menus are tailored and updated regularly with seasonal goodies; no matter when you visit, there'll always be something new to try.

As well as the eatery we provide a bespoke cake service - anything from christenings to birthdays to weddings, which was fully booked through summer.

What's your most memorable/proudest moment in business? There are too many moments to choose from, most slightly disastrous but they have always ended up with lots of laughter. On our first day open (January 17), we had all the cakes lined up on the counter under glass domes.

We had our coffee supplier, Owen & Edwards in giving us some additional training on the coffee machine. The biggest dome got knocked, slipped off the stand and ended up smashed all over the freshly baked cranberry & orange cake. Not quite the bang we were planning to open with.

Not long after that, AJ - one of the staff, made a latte for a new customer. The customer came across to the counter and asked for it to be warmer - it was stone cold! Turns out AJ hadn't even warmed and frothed the milk! Thankfully the customer found it just as funny as we did and is now one of our regulars.

At the end of a busy day we were sorting the cakes and packing them away for the next day. One was ever so slightly wonky, and was going to collapse any minute. I thought it would be a good idea to try and save the strawberries and cream cake - not so successfully at all, it wasn't a one person job! AJ came to my rescue and two slices were saved, the third went falling in a heap on the cake stand. We all enjoyed huddling round and eating it - it was a fight for who had the Lindt truffle on top of the slice.

A few weeks ago, we were just finishing tidying after a busy Saturday. I was in the back tidying, when I hear a loud crash; I appeared from the kitchen to see glass everywhere and a cake stand on the floor. Josh was hid behind the cake counter, not knowing what had happened. Josh felt terrible, we found it hilarious! Clean up took much longer than usual.

The proudest moments since opening the shop have been how well the team have adapted to the changes in the business with our customer base growing and the days getting busier.

We have regular customers that come in every week; we almost always know their orders, except when they swap! We all enjoy spending the time finding out how their weeks have gone.

We've also just started raising money for North East Wales Mind, with our tap waters. A small voluntary donation of 25p is asked for when a glass of tap water is ordered. These small generous donations are adding up and we know how much of a difference they will make to the charity, Mind. We will be continuing to raise money for Mind with donations from our Christmas pre-order treats.

Have you had any strange requests/quirky suggestions or stories from customers? No unusual requests or quirky suggestions but one Saturday we had a baby shower afternoon tea booked in. We had all the guests turn up but no mum-to-be - she was in labour!

One of our regular customers comes in and enjoys having a sing to our playlist - he even puts requests in.

Lovelies Delights - because a party without cake is just a meeting!