A mom went to Costco to pick up a custom design birthday cake for her 2-year-old's birthday party, but what she received was a completely blank cake. Katelynn Ross took to TikTok to share the Costco fail and the video has now been viewed over 800,000 times. As any parent knows, planning a kid's birthday party is a notoriously stressful process. There are so many tasks to complete, like getting or making themed décor, planning the food, activities, or venues that have to be booked, party invites … the list goes on and on.
The internet has certainly seen many cake fails from parents attempting to meet their kids' outrageous requests, but this mom had a simple one for her toddler that the Costco bakery apparently decided not to grant, so she came up with another plan instead.
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Birthday party planning is hard enough for moms already.
As if moms don't have enough to be stressed about the night before a party, this mom ended up with a major snag in the plan.
In her caption Katelynn wrote: “#Costcofail Without explanation, Costco didnt decorate my son’s birthday cake so I had to do it at 9pm the night before his party. #nailedit BUT SERIOUSLY, you thought leaving it blank was a good idea??? Do the best you can offer and that's my problem after, but them leaving it blank was a horribly petty plan.”
The mom's custom request was pretty simple and the bakery didn’t even do the bare minimum for this cake.
The mom went on to explain in her video that no decorators were there when she went to pick up the cake, so no one could explain why it was blank. She said in her video that she suspected it possibly had to do with licensing. “The best I can assume was because it’s a Sesame Street themed birthday party but I know they can’t do licensed things so all I asked for was a little street sign," she said.
“The person there gave me a couple of colors (icing) to take home and the manager there offered me $5 off for the inconvenience,” Katelynn says in her video. While Costco’s website doesn’t seem to directly address custom order options or any licensing issue, its website does say to give “our bakers a two day notice” which is supposed to help “to ensure that you're getting exactly what you want.” Doesn't seem that worked out this time around.
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This mom made the best of it though.
Because the bakery didn’t even write "Happy Birthday" on the cake, this mom took matters into her own hands. Katelynn concluded her TikTok video by showing the finished result, which looked pretty great. She said, “I took it home, I don’t like my handwriting. I’ve done cake stuff in the past before but this was the best I could do.”
She did say she was confused that they didn't even write, "Happy Birthday Teddy" on the cake or do any of the border colors she requested. Either way, it looks like her 2-year-old son will love his birthday cake!
TikTok users were divided over the mom's video.
Some users thought the mom was in the wrong and pointed out that Costco doesn’t do custom cake orders.
One user commented, “Costco doesn't do custom orders, you have to pick from the designs they offer.”
Another user wrote, “I work at Costco, the reason why is because they don’t do custom cakes, you must pick from already approved designs.”
But other users pointed out that the bakery could have at least called the mom to let her know and another pointed out that $5 doesn’t cover anything.
“No ones talking about how she only got $5 off for the inconvenience??" one user commented. "Like this isn’t the 80’s?! How much did the cake cost originally?"
“The fact they didn’t contact you is wild," another user commented. The mom replied that later she figured out they called her while she was working but did not leave a voicemail. Regardless, this mom made it work.
