You might want to get in line soon for the March 19 opening of Carlo's Bakery in Dallas. The made-for-TV shop made famous on TLC's Cake Boss is bound to attract huge crowds.
Take the opening of Carlo's Bakery in Orlando: In December, patrons patiently endured an 11-hour wait for pastries on opening day, recalls Maurizio Belgiovine, one of the members of the Cake Boss family. The family stayed until 1 a.m., making more pastries and mingling with the customers, until everyone was fed.
Customers might line up the night before Carlo's Bakery opens in Dallas, be forewarned.
Carlo's Bakery got its start in New Jersey. Long before there was a TV show, where pastry chef Buddy Valastro and his crew made outrageously large and complicated cakes, it was simply a family-owned business making signature sweets: cannolis and lobster tails. Carlo's Bakery is still a family-owned business, it's worth pointing out. But now they get to bring their shenanigans to television.
Belgiovine and another Carlo's family member, Mauro Castano, stood inside the Dallas shop at Preston Road and Northwest Highway Monday morning, getting ready for the big debut March 19. They recalled some of the show's most difficult desserts, like the Transformers cake that had LEDs in its eyes and fire shooting from its hands. ("That cake took years off my life," Castano told The Dallas Morning News.) The crew has even made a "toilet bowl cake" that actually flushed.
At the coming-soon Dallas bakery, don't expect to see camera crews often; most of the filming will take place in the northeast. Members of the family will regularly visit the first-in-Texas store, however, says Castano.
The Dallas shop will make custom cakes, but it'll also be a grab-n-go store where patrons can buy cookies, biscotti and the signature cannolis. It takes over a space where La Madeleine used to be.
Opens March 19 at 8:30 a.m. at 8319 Preston Road, Dallas.
