Since starting this journey together, we have learnt so many things and have instantly adapted when it was deemed necessary. In hindsight, we realise now that the décor inside the café, was too white and minimalistic, plus the window signs blocked people’s view as they walked past. Another mistake was branding ourselves as ‘edible raw cookie dough’ in the logo, as that was misrepresenting what we sold in the café and from customer feedback, put some people off from coming in, as they thought we only sold cookie dough (not surprisingly!). But we live and learn!

So, first on our agenda, now that the council had finally approved our signage application form, was to revamp the outside frontage to make it more inviting and encapsulate the variety of our offerings. We also opted to change our logo and name to ‘Rawkies Desserts & Café Bar’, as we felt that this best described our business. We then changed the window signs so people walking past would be able to see inside more easily – it also brought a lot more light inside the café too!

We knew all the external signs had to go, so we had a sign installed at the very top of the property and then after some thought, we decided to use artificial greenery to fill in the middle part – and we love the final look! Credit goes to Adam’s brother-in-law Steve Williams, owner of PSI Professional Signage Installations, for the installation of the signs!

Right, on to the inside! We knew it needed to have a cosier feel and that meant less white! Our original concept was minimalistic and clean, but I think we went a bit too far!

We found some lovely wallpaper online and asked Adam’s dad if he could put it on the walls and install some little twinkly lights to give it that extra cosy feel – he did an amazing job!!

I was in charge of the fake brick work for behind the counter and across the back wall, whilst Adam was taking the lead with the flatpack shelving units to create a bit of privacy between tables and so we could add some books and games for customers to enjoy.

It’s a shame we had to lose the external protruding box sign, as that helped to make us stand out from afar. However, now we have added the greenery to the front, we think (and hope!) we are more easily noticeable to passersby now… and (we think) we certainly don’t look like a “greasy fish and chip shop”!!

We eventually got round to having the lower ground floor refurbished and the guys who installed the new carpet did a fantastic job! We alternated the walls between the lovely wallpaper, fake brickwork and white paint. As there are no windows downstairs, we didn’t want to make the room too dark, so we tried to get the balance right! We finally had an events space where we could hold private dinners, corporate events, meetings, buffet receptions, birthday parties, cocktail masterclasses and Christmas Dinner parties. Adam worked so hard on the menu and he designed a fantastic package for each event. We then spent a full day doing set-ups of each type of event (with the help of Event Hire to provide us with the equipment) so we could create a professional brochure. We were now ready to launch ‘Rawkies Events’.

We are really happy with the overall new look and feel of the place – it finally looks finished! The feedback from our lovely customers has been really positive so far. However, we know we have the heaviest door in Bury(!), so we might decide to give the front door a bit of a wooden panel look, just to make it a bit more inviting and we want to add a feature wall inside the café that will be ‘Instagram-worthy’. No rest for the wicked!

Right, now to talk about our other business venture! So, quite early on in the business, I broached the idea to Adam of (attempting) to take our edible raw cookie dough into the retail market. Being completely honest with you, Adam wasn’t keen as he didn’t think this was a possibility for us. So, I didn’t broach it with him again after that.

However, a few months later, we were still struggling with the business and not getting enough customers in, so I did some more research and then decided to suggest the idea to Adam a second time. After a brief discussion, he agreed to give it a go (hurray!).

Now, this project was going to be a big one! We spent weeks and weeks researching, product testing, calling companies for quotes, testing tubs and boxes – the list was endless! And on top of that, we also had to create a brand presentation showcasing our business and products. This was hard work, but a few months later, we were ready to launch our online store and contact retailers to see if they would like to stock our edible raw cookie dough on their shelves… easier said than done!

We now had three separate elements to our business – Rawkies Desserts & Café Bar, Rawkies Edible Raw Cookie Dough, and Rawkies Events. The next step was how best to promote and advertise them, and on a tight budget!

The post THE RE-BRANDING OF RAWKIES appeared first on Rawkies Kitchen.

You wouldn’t believe the challenges that we have had to overcome in such a short period of time. It
just goes to show how greedy and sly large companies really are, and how little they care about
small struggling businesses! I guess we were a bit naïve and ignorant in that respect; well, not
anymore!

I doubt any of these companies will surprise you and I am not ashamed to admit that I became their
worst nightmare for the next three months!

The first company I will happily ‘name and shame’ was our electricity company, British Gas Business
(BGB). Due to a screw up at the National Grid and some confusion with our Broker, our business was
linked up with the wrong meter. This was first brought to our attention when our first bill came
through at just £16!! We knew this wouldn’t be right, so we got on the phone straight away and
after doing some digging ourselves, we had finally worked out what had happened. However,
nothing gets rectified with these large companies without prolonged stress! It took me, the company
and our Broker a good couple of months to finally put us on the correct meter. However, by that
time, we had already received three months’ worth of bills at an ‘out-of-contract’ rate (which, as you
can imagine, was extortionate!!). I was not having this, and we were certainly not going to pay it!
After getting some answers from our Landlord, I got straight on the phone to BGB and shock horror,
they were as useful as a chocolate teapot! With some great advice from our Broker (thank you Bob!)
I was ready to fight back! After several emails and phone calls back and forth, BGB finally admitted
that they had not actioned our landlord’s change of tenant request from when he submitted it back
in January, but they were still demanding that we pay them the full amount.

So, not only were we paying for an incorrect electricity meter with British Gas Lite (BGL), but we
were also getting changed extortionate out-of-contract rates with BGB as well!
If that wasn’t enough, Opus Energy also became our enemy when we received an abrupt threatening
letter one day out of the blue, demanding that we pay our gas bill immediately (bearing in mind that
we don’t actually have any gas appliances in the property!), or they will take it to their debt recovery
service. What a lovely letter to receive first thing on a morning! I instantly noticed that the ‘pay by’
date and the invoice date did not match up (the pay by date was dated two weeks prior to the
invoice date!). I had previously spoken to our Broker about the gas situation in the property and he
reassured me that he was dealing with it and getting the gas supply cut off. Anyway, I was livid with
Opus Energy and I got straight on the phone to them to get an explanation as to why we had
received this letter (in error!). Again, I may as well have been talking to a brick wall, as they couldn’t
care less and just kept demanding that we pay this bill. Well, tough sh*t, because I wasn’t going too!
You’d think that would be enough stress for us to deal with in one go, wouldn’t you?! Well, think
again!

Let’s rewind to the beginning of January when we were setting up the business. We had ordered all
our equipment from various online companies, which unfortunately, included the evil company,
Adexa Direct.

We ordered three items from them and luckily the two smaller items arrived without too much
stress! However, they appeared to have ‘lost’ our very large saladette prep counter and were unable
to tell us where it had been delivered too. We had never come across such an unprofessional and
uncaring company in all our life! Now, as you can imagine, we were in panic mode all weekend, as
we needed this counter to store our refrigerated items and cookie dough, as we were due to open

the following week. After ringing round, Nisbets came to our rescue and delivered a similar prep
counter in time for our grand opening (thank you Caroline!). However, sod’s law, on the day we get
this delivery, Adam gets a phone call from a friend to say that he has located the saladette prep
counter at a different address! What are the odds!?

We instantly phoned up Adexa to inform them of this update and that we no longer require the
item. However, even though this error occurred because of their delivery driver’s incompetence, we
would still have to pay a ridiculous amount of fees if we wanted to return the item – how unfair and
unjustified is that!? We were relying on that refund to pay some of the bills!

After receiving some great guidance from Citizen’s Advice, we ended up taking Adexa to the Small
Claims Court and had mediation with them. The mediator was lovely; she understood our
frustrations and empathised with us. The end result was that Adexa agreed to collect the item (free
of charge!) and that we would only need to pay the admin fee for us to get a full refund – halleluiah!
One company down… three to go!

Now, I’m sure you have all met a ‘Karen’ at some point in your life. Well, I became the next level
‘Karen’! (P.S We mean no disrespect to any of our lovely followers named Karen).

Unfortunately, our Broker was extremely busy and preoccupied, so we took it upon ourselves to deal
with these energy companies head on! It was us verses these greedy multimillion pound
corporations, and we were going to make damn sure that we win all three battles! Firstly, I sent a
very detailed written formal complaint to each energy company and my word, I gave them both
barrels!

Rather amusingly, Opus Energy threw themselves under the bus when they breached the GDPR rules
and sent me someone else’s business information! I know, you couldn’t make this stuff up! I’d like to
thank Bob for his part in this! He played a blinder when he (not so) subtly made it known to Opus of
the humongous penalty for GDPR breaches. £300 vs up to several million pounds (4% of their annual
turnover) … it’s a no brainer! No wonder they agreed to write our bill off! Anyway, two down… two
to go!

Next on my hit list was BGL – now they were taking ages to close the incorrect account (shock
horror!), so after they received my complaint, things started moving a bit faster and we eventually
received a refund for three months of incorrect invoices (to be honest, I think they were just sick of
me calling up and complaining, but I didn’t care!). Right… one left to go!

The most difficult company to reason with was BGB – it took them a long time to take responsibility
for their mistakes and after a few phone calls with the complaints department, they agreed to
reduce the bill to a reasonable amount.

It’s just unfortunate that all these issues took our attention away from the business for many
months, and caused us unnecessary stress and sleepless nights, when our primary focus should have
been on Rawkies. Nevermind, we won the battles and the war in the end! Sometimes it pays to be a
‘Karen’!

My advice to anyone ever in a similar situation is that Citizen’s Advice are a great pool of resources
and don’t be afraid to take it further with these companies. If you shout loud enough, you will get
the (fair) result you deserve! Any most importantly, never give up!

This has made us even stronger and more determined than ever to make Rawkies a success. Our
moto is that there is always a solution to every challenge! And we have certainly proved that!
Now, I purposely, didn’t mention about the issues we experienced with the Council during this time
as well, (I know, poor us!), but I will let Adam tell you that story!

The post SOPH – AKA SUPER KAREN appeared first on Rawkies Kitchen.

So, the name and whole initial concept of ‘Rawkies’ was all Adam’s idea, before we even met. Adam
has years of hospitality and events experience and always wanted to run his own business. He first
came up with the idea during the pandemic when he was made redundant from his role at Event
City.

We all love to lick the remaining cookie dough or cake batter from the bowl, don’t we?! Well, in
very small quantities, it isn’t a problem, but in large quantities it’s unsafe to eat due to the uncooked
flour and raw eggs. So, Adam researched how to make cookie dough safe to eat ‘raw’ and realised
that as long as the flour is heat-treated and we don’t use eggs, then it can be eaten in its raw
unbaked form – and actually, it tastes great!

I have loved baking for many years, my speciality was customised cakes – I even set up my own home
cake baking business (part-time) in 2019, called Sophie’s Cakes (I know, how original!). I found it so
therapeutic and I could spend hours on designing and creating the perfect cakes for my customers.
Alongside that, I was (and still am) a full-time Physiotherapist in the NHS. I guess you can say, I like to
keep busy!

Anyway, back to the edible raw cookie dough story! Adam thought he was the first person to come
up with this idea, however, after doing some research he realised he wasn’t and there were a small
handful of places in America that were already selling this dessert and even a few in the UK
(London). However, there was still a gap in the market (especially up North!) so thought he would
still take advantage of it!

By the time we met in early 2021, Adam had already created a full business plan for Rawkies. When
he was explaining it all to me, it looked so complicated but Adam made it sound so easy! He
certainly did a thorough job and made sure he didn’t leave anything out.

I remember Adam coming over to my place one day with a huge test batch of the Night & Day
Rawkies (dark and white chocolate chips) that he and a close chef friend of his had made. My word, I
had never eaten cookie dough before that day and after one mouthful, I was hooked! I ended up
eating most of it by myself!

The original signature flavours of edible raw cookie were Birthday Cake, Hazelnut, Salted Caramel
Brownie (vg), Night and Day (ngc), Rainbow, Chocolate Orange, Honeycomb and Eton Mess.
However, once we were more established, we soon decided to change some of these options! My
favourite was chocolate orange, so I was gutted when we decided to take it off the menu. I was
surprised that it wasn’t a popular flavour! However, I love our current selection of cookie dough – my
(new) favourite is the High Protein Peanut Butter Chip Rawkies; made with whey protein and honey
(instead of flour and caster sugar). Since I am the Executive Baker, I have full control over the cookie
dough recipes, and I am keeping this specific recipe under wraps!

When we first tested making milkshakes with blended cookie dough, we knew this was going to be a
winner and my word, having little pieces of cookie dough with every sip, tastes amazing! My
favourite is definitely the protein milkshake! If you like peanut butter, then you must give this a try!

Something for which I (Sophie) will take full credit for, is the sundaes – during our break one evening,
I randomly put together a dessert made of ice cream, cookie dough, sauces, whipped cream and
toppings. As soon as I started eating it, I told Adam that we must put this on the menu – so we did!
Unsurprisingly, they have become a big hit with our customers; perfect on a warm summer’s day!

Adam is a fantastic chef (I don’t know how he does it!) and not long after we opened, he was soon
developing the menu even further and coming up with even more delicious dishes to offer our customers! I must admit, I did enjoy being the guinea pig and testing out his new concoctions!

Being your own boss is great – we certainly love the freedom it brings to adapt and develop anything we
desire, without having to get permission from someone higher up!

A few months after opening, we had a visit from a lovely couple of customers (so sorry, I can’t
remember your names!) and they came up with a great suggestion of adding boozy milkshakes to
our drinks offering. This really caught our attention and after a few weeks of designing the recipes
and testing them out, we finally got them added to our menu. I think in total, we have re-printed our
menu about 10 times since opening!

The menu has come a long way since January 2023, and our latest editions; doughnut burgers and
Yorkshire Pudding wraps (sweet and savoury), again, all credit goes to Adam(!), we hope we have
something different to offer for everyone.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, the business isn’t picking up as quickly as we need it too, and
this is affecting us emotionally as well as financially. We need a plan and fast…

Next chapter coming soon……..

The post WHY EDIBLE RAW COOKIE DOUGH? appeared first on Rawkies Kitchen.

We must have researched and visited dozens of properties across the North West, desperately
seeking to find ‘the perfect site’. We came close to renting two sites in Warrington, and would have
taken one of them if the landlord wasn’t sure a scatty idiot messing us around and changing his mind
several times. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine what Rawkies would have been like at those other
sites; how different the business would have been…

I (Sophie) am a firm believer in that everything happens for a reason; life has proved that, from the
good and the bad. And when we stumbled across this site in Bury for the first time, we weren’t sure
what to make of it, so we put it in the ‘maybe pile’. It must have been a couple of months later when
we revisited the advert for it and really thought about the pros and cons. Pros: town centre location,
big site, good condition, no major competition for desserts. Cons: rent was top of our budget, there
was a whopping great sign on it from the previous tenant that we would have pay to remove, it
would need a change of use application with the council as it was formerly an education centre, but
most importantly, from the outside, it didn’t have that hospitality feel or appearance, so would need
a bit of creative thinking to get it up to scratch. Anyway, we decided to visit the site and go from
there. When we entered the property, we knew it had potential and saw the possible footfall that it
could have; we thought we found the perfect site, so we eventually decided to bite the bullet.

However, before we could sign on the dotted line, we needed to research this change of use
application, which was completely new territory for both of us! After undertaking a lot of research
(and I mean a lot!), we decided we were going to write all the documents ourselves. We are both
intelligent, organised and assertive people; we felt we didn’t need a company to do it for us and
charge the earth! So, over the next few months, Wetherspoon became our second home and we
worked so hard to get the application forms and required documents spot on. We really learnt a lot
from completing this application process and once submitted, we could breathe a sigh of relief! We
had done our very best and if the council reject it, then it wasn’t meant to be.

We did quite a bit of research into this and realised that many councils like to retain as many local
community and learning centres (Class F properties) as possible, so we knew there would be a good
chance that the council would reject our application form. However, by that point, we had fallen in
love with the site, so we wanted to at least try.

Now came the waiting game. We knew it wouldn’t be a quick process but my word, the council were
slow and kept asking us to change (irrelevant!) details on our drawings and site maps! The original
decision date was scheduled for the beginning of November 2022, which we were fine with, as that
meant we could be in the property and ready for the Christmas trade. However, due to the council’s
backlog, they asked us for an extension, which we had no choice but to agree too! Even though,
opening a new dessert café in January, is probably the worst time to do it!

However, in early December 2022, four months after submitting the application form, we got the
answer we were hoping for! We were going to open our very own business! We were so excited and
proud of ourselves; we did this without any professional help!

After sorting out all the legal paperwork with solicitors, we finally got the keys on Boxing Day; this
was such a surreal, exciting moment for us both. We finally had the keys to a commercial property!

The following day we went to Bury to start on the redecorating. We parked our car in the car park
and headed through the town centre. We were still in our own little excited world, that was until we
stumbled across something that burst our bubble… Kaspa’s Desserts were also coming to town!

Typical, we visited Bury on several occasions and that building was empty; we had no idea that a
major dessert chain was planning on opening round the corner from us! If we did, then we would
have likely not taken on this property. I (Sophie) stayed positive and objective about the situation;
we had developed the menu so much in the last four months that we were no longer just desserts;
we had a bar menu, burgers, flatbread pizzas and salads. We weren’t just going to be a dessert shop,
so I wasn’t too worried. However, Adam took a little longer to be convinced, but it was too late to
back out now…

Next chapter coming soon……..

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