There is an easier way to run a cake shop than the way we run ours. You buy in frozen product from a wholesaler, you thaw it, you decorate it, you sell it. Plenty of shops do exactly that, and some of them do it well.
We have never done it. Everything sold at Roberto’s is made on site at Springwood, in the same building you walk into. After 42 years it would be fair to ask whether that is stubbornness or whether it actually matters. Here is the honest answer.
What “on-site” actually means
It means the cheesecakes, the cakes, the gateaux, the pavlovas, the tarts and pies and the savoury lines are made in our kitchen on the Pacific Highway. Not assembled here. Made here.
The mixing, the baking, the setting, the finishing. It is the same room, the same people, and in a lot of cases the same recipes we were using decades ago.
The part customers notice: it tastes different
Freezing changes texture. It is not a moral failing, it is physics — water expands, ice crystals form, and the structure of a cake or a cheesecake filling is never quite the same afterwards. A bought-in frozen cheesecake thawed behind a counter can be perfectly pleasant. It is not the same as one that was never frozen.
This is most obvious in a chilled cheesecake, where the whole point is a silky set. It is why people who have eaten ours tend to notice when they eat someone else’s.
The part we notice: we can actually fix things
This is the less romantic reason, and probably the more important one.
When you make your own product you control it. If a batch is not right, it does not go out. If a customer needs something adjusted, we can adjust it. If a custom cake design will not work structurally, the person who can tell you that is twenty feet away, not at the end of a supplier’s phone queue.
A shop that buys in product cannot do any of that. They can only sell what arrived on the truck.
It is why the range is as odd as it is
Most cake shops sell cake. We also sell sausage rolls, quiches and pies.
That only makes sense because we have a real kitchen. If we were buying in, adding a savoury line would mean a second supplier, a second minimum order and a second set of margins. Because we bake, it is just a different tray in the same oven.
It is the single thing that most distinguishes us from every cake-only competitor within twenty minutes of here.
What it costs us
In fairness, it is worth being straight about the downsides, because there are some.
We cannot produce infinite volume at short notice. That is why custom cakes need at least 5 working days and wedding cakes at least two weeks. A shop that thaws bought-in product has far more flexibility than we do on a Friday afternoon.
We are also collection only. We do not run a delivery fleet, because the kitchen is where the money goes.
And some things sell out. When the Biscoff cheesecakes are gone on a Saturday, they are gone, because there is no freezer full of spares out the back.
42 years in the same place
Roberto’s has been on this stretch of the Pacific Highway for 42 years. In that time the suburb has changed a great deal, the highway has changed around us, and a good number of competitors have opened and closed.
We are still here, still baking in the same building, still making the same cheesecakes that got us the name over the door. That is not nostalgia — it is just that the thing we do turned out to be worth continuing to do.
Come and see
The shop is at 3414/3416 Pacific Hwy, Springwood QLD 4127. Open Monday to Friday 7:30am to 5:30pm, and Saturday and Sunday 8:30am to 4:00pm — every day except Christmas Day.
Have a look at what is on the shelf, or order online and collect. Phone (07) 3209 2771.