Crumbs Bake Shop Closing Its Doors

If our economy can't sustain a gourmet cupcake chain selling $4.50 cupcakes, what hope does it have?

 

I think it's a positive sign that people aren't fucking stupid enough to pay that for a cupcake.

 

I live in a high-end suburb of a city and these boutique cupcake shops open and close every six months. We got a buy one, get one, coupon in the mail and my wife and I walked down there and the couple in front of us spend $25 on two coffees and two cupcakes. The cheapest cupcakes there were $6 each. They were great. But that's just insanity.

 

There is one in my town, or I guess was one in my town. I never understood the business model -- we have a couple of decent bakeries and while the Crumbs cupcakes are very good, they didn't sell anything else. So how often could even a devoted customer possibly go into the store -- once a week at best?

 

Real talk:

Pie > cake.

 

My guess is that the model was dependent on catering and large orders and the storefront was just a bonus.

A random person buying a cupcake is peanuts compared to the person buying 500 for a wedding.

So, once that business dries up, you don't have that many options unless you can bake other things and get into the selling in bulk to hospitals, coffee shops and such.

 

Even if they are very successful doing cakes and/or cupcakes for weddings, having a storefront in a pretty expensive strip mall would seem like a pretty unnecessary expense. I understand the argument that the storefront makes people aware of you and that will help with the catering/wedding business, but it still seems like a pretty expensive way to advertise. At the rate they're closing, whatever they're doing isn't working.

 

They had a kiosk on the first floor of the WaterTower Mall here. Unbelievable location. I installed two espresso machines there, and they sold a ton of espresso, as there wasn't a lot of competition (and, at first, they were selling Starbucks, and there was not a Starbucks in the mall).

The cupcakes looked good, and over the top luxurious, loaded with frosting and toppings. But, I never got one, as they looked expensive, and hard to eat without a knife and fork.

I was in the mall last week for another customer, and they had no cupcakes. At first, I thought maybe they had sold out, but then I saw the sign saying there was a problem at the bakery. Combined with the recent store closings, I figured the end was near.

 

To me, that was one of their problems: the cupcakes were too big and impossible to eat on the go.

 

I lived in a city with tons of cupcake shops and I thought they were at the bottom of the barrel. Their cupcakes looked great, but were just too damn sugary, big, and hard to eat. I know a cupcake is supposed to be an unhealthy treat, but damn, I would feel sick just eating half of their cupcake. When I first saw their store, they had a line with literally 25+ people queued up. I rarely noticed a line in recent months.

 

The coffee in the one by me was awful.

And the cupcakes were huge -- if I took my kids there, they usually split one or it was dessert for two days.

 

Dudes, tear off the stump and make a cupcake sandwich.

It makes any cupcake easy to eat, especially on the go.