We've ordered cakes from CakeWorks in the NE on several occasions, and have never been asked for a deposit. It can't just be a Japanese thing. And Cakeworks certainly couldn't just easily scrape the cake and redecorate if you didn't come pick it up. The whole cake is decorated to match the theme of whatever you put on it, on all sides. Plus, it can't be as easy to scrape off a actuall cake cake vs a frozen ice cream cake. The frozen ice cream will maintain it's shape with a little bit of force applied to it. Plus, if it's a little out of shape, they could just reshape it by adding ice cream where needed and refreezing.
An actual baked cake though? I'm not a baker, but I can't imagine scraping icing off of a cake without destroying it.
And I have no idea why you'd settle for a Safeway cake after having a custom cake on order. It's not like a custom cake costs much more than a generic Safeway one.
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