Take This Job: Wal-mart cake decorator creates frosted art

Ten-year Wal-mart employee and 27-year veteran cake decorator Cliff Imai puts the finishing touches on a “Half-and-Half” cake for the birthdays of two Enterprise siblings. Imai said he loves adding personal details to his work, such as an Enterprise Wildcats paw print.

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Published: October 05, 2008

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There are more than 500 employees at the Enterprise Wal-mart, but only one can take an idea and make it a sweet reality.

Cliff Imai uses colored frosting, edible glitter, bavarian cream, strawberry filling, edible photos and airbrushed food coloring to make customers’ cake dreams come to life. His calm quietness and talent for freehand decorating makes him an assest to the bakery department and beloved and respected by the store’s employees.

“She frosts the cakes, and I do the decorating,” Imai said of his co-worker Frances Caspers. The bakery cranks out 50 to 70 cakes every weekend and Imai’s artful reditions have kept business booming.

“He’s so modest. He’ll never brag on himself but he’s the heart of this place,” said Caspers. “We get people coming in all the time, gushing about how awesome their cake looked.”

Imai, a 27-year veteran of his craft, said he gets a thrill when someone wants a design that is not in the bakery’s decoration suggestion book, such as dragons, monsters and other creatures that require lots of detail.

“I made an over-the-hill cake with a tombstone and shovels and dirt. All edible,” he said. “I also made a pizza cake once. It had olives, pepperoni, green peppers. I even put white dots on the pepperoni to look like those fat spots.”

A man of few words, Imai is an artist at heart. On his days off and even at coffee break time, he creates life-like ink sketches form looking at photographs.

“I don’t sell them, just give them away,” he said. “I just love doing it.”

Imai has been decorating cakes since 1981 when he began working at the Officer’s Club on Fort Rucker, creating sweet rolls, coffee cakes and other decadent delights. Then in 1997 he saw an ad on Wal-mart’s door that said the store was looking to hire a cake decorator.

“I used to make cakes with Mickey Mouse and Big Bird. I didn’t know about all that copyright stuff,” he said. “But when I got here they told me I had to stop.”

With a sheepish grin, he admits his sweet tooth got the better of him on the job. “I’m a diabetic, and have been for 20 years now,” he said.

Imai loves drawing on sweet treats and adding fun details but admits he hates to make Wal-mart’s 3 and 5-tiered wedding cakes.

“I’ve done a few, but they make me nervous because it’s such a big deal,” he said. “I don’t think I’m that good. I’m still learning.”