DALE HUFFMAN
COMMENTARY
BEAVERCREEK — Bob Schumann found retirement boring after 35 years working at Hobart Corp. in Troy.
Very boring.
“You can only golf so much,” said Schumann. He and his wife, Kathy, began looking for a business to run, but they weren’t having much luck until their daughter called from Lexington, Ky., where Gigi’s Cupcakes has been popular.
Bob investigated several Gigi’s Cupcakes affiliates and he liked what he saw. His grandson’s birthday party at his day care, with Gigi’s cupcakes, convinced him. He stood in “awe” at the sight of the kids’ excitement for those cupcakes.
Training in Nashville with Gigi, the woman who created the business, and finding a location came first.
Last year, Bob and Kathy finally found what they were looking for at 3800 Colonel Glenn Hwy.
“Customers come in happy and they leave happy,” said Bob, “We just love it.”
A quadruple heart bypass hasn’t stopped Bob from promoting the business he loves.
“I took a bunch of cupcakes to the doctors and the nurses’ station and they asked ‘What are these for?’” said Bob. “I said ‘Well, I’m a patient here and, if I don’t die, there’ll be more cupcakes next Wednesday.’ ”
Bob and Kathy love the business they started last November and the employees they’ve hired seem to openly enjoy their work.
“The owners are good people,” said Karen Mcabee, a decorator at the shop. “They support the military. They do things for the community. They bring kids in the back and do tours for the kids, and you see their eyes get real big,” she said of the young visitors.
Bob and Kathy have hired retired friends and several Wright State University students to work at their cupcake shop.
“It’s a bunch of old people and young kids working at this place,” said Bob. “We work around the students’ class schedules.”
Customers are as varied as the cupcakes available at the shop.
Zahid Garcia, 11, heard about the shop at school.
“My friend told me about the cupcakes and I wanted to have one,” he said.
Word spread both through local advertising and through social media like Facebook.
“I saw one of (my) friends posted something on Facebook and decided to get some for the baby-sitter and kids,” said Mary Tarlano of Beavercreek.
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