Has The Cupcake Bubble Finally Popped?
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You can only charge $4 for a cupcake for so long before the novelty wears off. Maybe now people will stop telling me to quit my job and make cupcakes full-time after they try my chocolate cupcakes w/ sriracha caramel frosting.
And, if you're looking to get in on the next fad sweet trend, donuts are the new cupcakes.
But the client is convinced that this expansion will end soon. My town alone has 5 or 6 of them (with 2 more slated to open this year) and there's just no way even a town of my size (pop. 50,000) can sustain it.
I definitely see cupcake shops at chi-chi spots in NYC, LA and SF but I've never seen one in a city with < 1M population or in a rural or posturban area.
Now a kilobuck a day isn't going to earn you a private island retirement. That's for a hole in the wall in a cruddy area not a giant palace right off the interstate and barely keeping in business and paying the bills. But it is theoretically survivable.
WRT the fad itself disappearing, most small businesses collapse and are replaced by other small businesses so in the long run they'll all eventually disappear, to be replaced with the next new fad at about the same financial and survival stats.
Its been interesting watching financial changes in my town since the housing bubble popped, before the pop the purpose of a small business was to separate a sucker from his home equity loan money, so the landlords didn't care about infrastructure or parking, etc, but suddenly now that the amateurs are gone from the market, once again CRE actually needs to appeal to be rented, parking is not an option anymore, etc.
The remaining shop (which has several shops in the city, still) will likely survive, but they've also pivoted a bit by selling other things, too.
Don't forget that there's also a weekly TV show ("Cupcake Wars") giving the trend a lot of exposure.
I was always skeptical of cupcakes because they were (1) annoyingly expensive and (2) blatantly unhealthy, but SF seems to have addressed both of those concerns.
[1] http://adage.com/article/news/crowded-fro-yo-pond-sweet-frog...
Right?
Right?
Replace cupcakes with some technology and you got yourself a technology blog post.
What's about the cupcakes? Do US citizens buy cupcakes in high volumes and high prices?
Here is just a general link of what Cake Pops are, if you are not familiar with them: http://www.bakerella.com/pops-bites/cake-pops/ - Basically, just a cupcake/cake on a stick that can have lots of designs around it.
The Doughnut Vault (http://thedoughnutvault.tumblr.com/) probably is the most well known with new arrivals like Do-Rite (http://doritedonuts.com/) and Glazed and Infused (http://www.goglazed.com/). Had to include last that one just for the awesome name.
There's a kebab shop in south london called "Halal! Is it meat you're looking for?"
Crumbs can probably sell cake pops and gourmet donuts and every new trend that comes along and be fine if they play it right.
The faddishness of it is annoying. We're allowed 10 new cupcake retailers per year and nothing else opens. Why can't my son, who's medically diagnosed as gluten intolerant, have a nice gourmet beef jerky bar or gourmet fried egg restaurant or something, anything other than endless cupcake stores?
We're also undergoing a gym bubble where we've recently added several "curves" "24 hr fitness", several golds gyms, and plenty of non chain gyms. "Four of my entrepreneur friends just opened a gym, I better open one too to keep up!".
In a country where desserts are a part of nearly every meal, it's a "cheap" thrill. Ben & Jerry's haven't gone out of business.
It's not my scene, but is someone's.
Either it never hit Baltimore or I just don't go to the trendy parts of town.
The bad news is thanks to the food network, five of the ten trucks are now korean bbq (which does admittedly taste awesome) and all of them think $10 to $15 for a small amount of food is a fair price because thats what they charged on the great food truck race while in NYC so... When I walk over and splurge $15 for a little entree I always feel weird getting there by walking past perfectly good brick and mortar restaurants where I'd get more food for like $8 worst case.