Liverpool celebration cake favourite Terry Tang is opening its first coffee shop

It’s almost 40 years since Terry Tang discovered a natural flair for cake decoration after offering to help wife Carol create one for his daughter’s first birthday.

Since then, Terry Tang Designer Cakes has gone on to become a long-standing Liverpool favourite, baking and designing occasion cakes for generations of Scousers.

Now celebrating more than two decades as a family-run business, Terry, Carol and their younger daughter Leanne are planning to expand their bakery in a new direction.

Along with the personalised cakes for christenings, birthdays and more that they’re known for, they’re opening a coffee shop at their Woolton Village site from Saturday (November 1).

Carol said:

“We’ve had three different shops over the years but this is the first time we’ve ever had a coffee shop inside. We’re going to be doing our range of cupcakes and also bigger cakes by the slice so classics like Victoria sponge, chocolate fudge, and lemon drizzle.

“I want us to be a little community area where mums can meet with their babies, or people can pop in when they’re shopping, and we have quite a few elderly customers as well who’ve been telling us how much they’re looking forward to it.”

Although they’ve become a go-to for celebration cakes, the couple actually fell into the business by accident.

Terry was working as a builder and stone mason when Carol decided to have a go at baking a character cake for their daughter Suilin’s first birthday.

“I wanted to make this teddy bear cake for her that I’d seen in the Woman’s Own but I just couldn’t do it,” she remembers.

“Terry came home from work and straight away sorted it and it was brilliant. After that, he did one every birthday for her, and then along came Leanne so he ended up doing two cakes a year for our two daughters.

“He got made redundant in 1993 and we reversed roles, I was working full-time at Woolies and he was a stay-at-home dad. The girls at work would ask if Terry would do a cake for them and he’s very creative so he really enjoyed it.

“We quickly realised that he had a talent for it so we started doing St George’s Hall wedding show which was the only one at the time. There was no social media and we didn’t have a website so we designed leaflets on our computer at home, printed them off and photocopied and delivered them around houses near where we live in Woolton.”

With Carol as the baker and Terry decorating, they opened their first shop in Booker Avenue in 2000. Carol was a manager for Edge Hill College at the time while Terry ran the shop during the day, then she would bake in the evenings when she got home from work.

When Carol was offered voluntary redundancy in 2005, she decided to take it and focus all their efforts on building up the business.

They quickly outgrew their first shop and moved to a much bigger one on Picton Road, where daughter Leanne began working alongside her mum and dad. Then just over seven years ago they opened their current shop in Woolton Village.

The business is still entirely family-run, with Carol baking and creating 25 different flavours of cupcakes and being front of house in the shop, and Terry and Leanne responsible for the decoration of the celebration cakes.

This year, the couple – now in their 60s – decided to step back from the wedding part of business and it was then Terry came up with the idea of adding a coffee shop where their wedding displays used to be.

Terry Tang’s now has seating for 16 and Carol plans to make at least 15 varieties of cupcake every week as well as the larger classics.

“We’ve made so many birthday cakes over the years, we’ve actually done christening cakes and then that child has grown up, got married and ordered their wedding cake,” says Carol.

“That’s when you feel old but it is really lovely and we won’t be stopping doing those, it’s only the wedding side that’s winding down. This is a new chapter for us and we can’t wait.”