Well, that's exactly what Grub Street Chicago is proclaiming, after MLive.com profiles Michigan's The Cupcake Station:
Johnson said his Ann Arbor location sells 400 to 700 cupcakes on weekdays and 1,000 on Saturdays and Sundays. At $2.75 for one cupcake, $15 for six or $27 for a dozen, that's $4,530 to $5,500 on weekends in Ann Arbor alone, and that's without catering revenues, which make up some 30 percent of the total. Birmingham's daily sales are 50 percent higher, and catering is at 50 percent there, Johnson said.
Why are cupcakes selling in this economy? "The price point is great," Johnson said. "Everybody that walks by our store can afford something, whether they have a job or not. This is what people are looking for ... some happiness in their lives."
A Rochester location was on the horizon this year, but the lease fell through. Now Johnson's looking at other Rochester spots and a Washington, D.C., location he hopes to open next year. He has his eye on Philadelphia, Chicago and other East Coast corridor cities.
"My dream is to have one in every downtown," Johnson said. He plans to build the stores first and then sell them as franchises, giving franchisees about a year of training before they take over.
I don't think we're quite at the exhaustion level yet, are we? Also, didn't Cupcakes, which Grub Street Chicago mentions, close?
Sadly, I will not be at BlogHer this weekend (though we may get a visiting cupcake taster to do some Chicago sampling for us), and 2 years ago, when I was there, many of the local cupcake bakeries didn't exist, and the ones that did, I didn't get to visit. So Chicago is on my list, maybe for a long weekend in 2010.
More Cupcakes cupcake, photo by Flickr user JOE_M500
I love those More Cupcakes curlicues so much I can't resist another photo:
photo by Flickr user elisharene
Speaking of Chicago, it's only fitting that the home of the the BLT cupcake and tomato soup cupcake would be hosting a savory cupcake version of Iron Cupcake:
See Beautiful Cakes for more information and email beautifulcakes at sbcglobal.net to register.
Johnson said his Ann Arbor location sells 400 to 700 cupcakes on weekdays and 1,000 on Saturdays and Sundays. At $2.75 for one cupcake, $15 for six or $27 for a dozen, that's $4,530 to $5,500 on weekends in Ann Arbor alone, and that's without catering revenues, which make up some 30 percent of the total. Birmingham's daily sales are 50 percent higher, and catering is at 50 percent there, Johnson said.
Why are cupcakes selling in this economy? "The price point is great," Johnson said. "Everybody that walks by our store can afford something, whether they have a job or not. This is what people are looking for ... some happiness in their lives."
A Rochester location was on the horizon this year, but the lease fell through. Now Johnson's looking at other Rochester spots and a Washington, D.C., location he hopes to open next year. He has his eye on Philadelphia, Chicago and other East Coast corridor cities.
"My dream is to have one in every downtown," Johnson said. He plans to build the stores first and then sell them as franchises, giving franchisees about a year of training before they take over.
I don't think we're quite at the exhaustion level yet, are we? Also, didn't Cupcakes, which Grub Street Chicago mentions, close?
Sadly, I will not be at BlogHer this weekend (though we may get a visiting cupcake taster to do some Chicago sampling for us), and 2 years ago, when I was there, many of the local cupcake bakeries didn't exist, and the ones that did, I didn't get to visit. So Chicago is on my list, maybe for a long weekend in 2010.
More Cupcakes cupcake, photo by Flickr user JOE_M500
I love those More Cupcakes curlicues so much I can't resist another photo:
photo by Flickr user elisharene
Speaking of Chicago, it's only fitting that the home of the the BLT cupcake and tomato soup cupcake would be hosting a savory cupcake version of Iron Cupcake:
See Beautiful Cakes for more information and email beautifulcakes at sbcglobal.net to register.
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