Two cupcake places opened up on a retail-heavy street near me and one of them just closed. They were the fancy frufy place that apparently couldn’t get the cake part of cupcake right. It was very dry according to several people.
The other place is cupcake oriented, but serves other things and does catering.
The 90’s want their idea, along with their EP length VCR tapes of 30Something back.
There used to be on near where we lived in Frisco that had exceptionally good Red Velvet cupcakes, but they had lots of problems. The Dallas Morning News did an exposé on them and, apparently, they’d left a long string of unpaid creditors behind them, as well as shoddy business practices, like attacking the competition in an underhanded way. Then came out the absolute worst part; their cupcakes were made from box mixes and that sounded the death knell. So much for spending $4 a pop.
Not me, I love cupcakes. They are the perfect little bit of cake and icing. 
If I bake a cake, I’ll eat the damn thing. This way I only eat one cupcake. I have no willpower when it comes to baking. None.
Mighty Sweet Mini Pies is on my side of Downtown Houston.
These fads are slightly silly. Cupcakes, bacon, etc., have always been around. Well-made cupcakes will remain popular, even if there are fewer cupcake-only stores. This cupcake/snoball shop also has a trailer–but aren’t food trucks going out of fashion? Taco trucks have been around forever & aren’t going to disappear…
Also hot: macaroons.
(Now I’m hungry!)
Food trucks aren’t a fad as much as they are a way for creative people to strike out on their own with next to no capital. For every chef who gets someone to invest in his or her new restaurant, there are probably hundreds who don’t get that chance. If a truck and a few hundred dollars in equipment is someone’s ticket to self employment and the possibility of being discovered, then I just don’t see a downside.
Food trucks are still going very, very strong here in NE Ohio.
:smack:
We actually have one of those were I live. Lucky for me it’s not on my way home or I’d probably weigh twice as much.
Dammit. Now I want cake (cupcake or otherwise)!
http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2012/11/15/best-pie-shops-in-puget-sound/
You get your pick of a dozen pie stores in my area.
Business insider are just giving you next week’s numbers. CYNK now over $20. The CEO?sole employee/major shareholder as 210 million shares…
Anyone ever been in one of those specialty bundt cake places? They seem to be all over the place in Dallas, but I’ve never really had the desire to check it out.
Crumbs at least you got a giant cupcake for your $4. The place I really don’t understand is Baked By Melissa. Those are $1 each but they are minuscule! They’re not even bite size, they are like half-bite size. And the store always seem like they are wasting so much square footage.
Mentioned above, but nitpick is those aren’t macaroons. They are macarons. Different thing, unless the linguistic merge has already happened (and it may have.)
That ship sailed about ten or fifteen years ago.
I don’t know about other places, but here in Richmond the donut craze is taking off. And I am a big fan.
Anyone else reminded of the people on infomercials?
I came in to mention that. $2 doughnuts are the new $3 cupcakes. I am OK with this.
We have a cupcake store in the next town and they charge $2 per cupcake. They are very good but the price tag is a bit steep. We only get them for special occasions.
Cupcakes are a prime example of how pastries have evolved for the better in Thailand since I’ve been here. In the 1980s, cakes and pastries were all made with inferior ingredients. You had to go to Malaysia to find anything decent along those lines, and eventually Laos and Cambodia as those countries opened up. Bread especially, it was this horrible gunky white substance that made Wonderbread seem gourmet.
But nowadays, there are some really topnotch goodies to be had in just about every one of our ubiquitous shopping malls, and there must be dozens of cupcake specialists. It’s cupcake heaven now, with really premium ones commanding the equivalent of US$3 or $4, maybe even $6, all quite pricey for Thailand. But the fad may be dying here too.