Port Huron bakery to go on reality show
The Port Huron community will soon see local business owners on the reality show “The Blox.”
Bev and Al Taylor, owners of Royal-T Cakery, located at 2040 Holland Ave., will join the show’s filming from Feb. 7 to Feb. 13. The show, which is filmed in Kansas City, Missouri, is aimed for small businesses and start-up companies. Bev Taylor said the show is like a business boot camp.
“The show will serve a lot of purposes and will be completely educational,” she said. “We’ll learn a lot about running a small business, and at the same time get publicity and make connections with people in the industry.”
People can watch the show on the BetaBlox Facebook page and through "The Blox" app. The app can be found on both Apple IOS and Google Play. At this time, the Taylor’s are unsure of when the show will be aired.
Royal-T Cakery has been in business since September 2021. Bev Taylor said the business originally started out of her kitchen and when people kept ordering from her, she and Al Taylor opened a storefront. She said they are not business owners in the traditional sense. Neither went to business school.
Bev Taylor said the show will give them the training and software they need to continue running Royal-T Cakery.
The Taylors have a guaranteed spot on the show. However, they set up GoFundMe page to raise $5,000 to cover the cost of being on the show. The money would cover plane tickets and the all-inclusive one-week stay in the hotel used for filming.
As of Monday, the GoFundMe has raised $3,000. People who wish to contribute can find it on www.gofundme.com.
Bev and Al Taylor will miss Valentine’s Day while on the show, which is one of bakery’s busiest times of year. During that time, Royal-T Cakery will be run by their oldest daughter, 26-year-old Jessi-Ann and their employees.
“We have a lot of faith in our employees,” Al Taylor said.
Royal-T Cakery will continue to take walk-ins but will not do custom cake orders while Bev and Al Taylor are gone. Bev Taylor is the only cake decorator at the bakery.
As part of the show, all the contestants will have a vignette of hometown footage edited by the show’s staff. Bev and Al Taylor haven’t started filming for it yet, but they want to showcase the community and the support it gives to their business.
“This community has gone above and beyond for us in many ways,” Bev Taylor said. “People are so kind and supportive of us.”
Screen time on the show is not guaranteed, but Bev and Al have a plan. They said they’re designing a cake that will have the show’s logo on it, which is an astronaut holding blocks. Bev and Al Taylor will film the process and hope it will be placed in the vignette.
“You have to earn camera time,” Al Taylor said. “If you don’t advance or do well in the early part of the competition, you fall back and they don’t focus on you.”
He said he and Bev Taylor have been studying a lot with the pre-competition software they were given. The showrunners said there are clues in it that will tell competitors how to set themselves apart from each other.
Bev and Al Taylor have a lot of future plans for Royal-T Cakery. They’re trying to build a new website that that will have features like a subscription package and custom cookie creation. Additionally, they hope to start distributing their products to local businesses and restaurants. Bev Taylor said she hopes that will turn into nationwide shipping.
“I feel like we owe the people that have contributed to make something of Royal-T,” she said. “This can’t just be a vacation for us. (The show) has to move us forward.”
Royal-T Cakery is opened from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesdays, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays.
Contact McKenna Golat at mgolat@gannett.com or (810) 292-0122.
This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Royal-T Cakery to join reality show, set up GoFundMe
