ESPN’s TMQ:
Tech start-ups were a bubble, the housing market was a bubble; most likely there’s a gold bubble in progress, and when the gold bubble bursts, everyone will claim to have known it all along! The bubble to worry about is the cupcake bubble: all those fancy cupcake bakeries suddenly in New York, Boston, Washington, San Francisco and Seattle, offering $5 cupcakes hard to distinguish from supermarket cupcakes. It’s a bubble: Capital is flowing into the opening of cupcake boutiques because, right now, consumers are willing to pay a premium for a sweet that is inexpensive to bake. As with other bubbles, this one is based on exaggerated claims and assumptions that can’t last. In 2009, for whatever reason, people will stand in line to fork over $5 for a cupcake that masquerades as “red velvet” or “pink lemonade.” Odds people will continue to do this long-term? 0.0 percent. Anyone opening a fancy cupcake bakery is jumping into the downside of a bubble. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
That’s why I’m putting all my money in an industry that is impervious to such fluctuations: Tulip bulbs.
Tulip bulbs are *so* 400 years ago.
Saying “years” is SO last century. We measure time in election cycles, which are further broken down into election seasons, which are further broken down into news cycles. I’ve been on top of this trend for an election cycle and three news cycles.
Fads come and fads go, that isn’t news. I wonder if cupcake shops will stick around, though, even after the bubble. Some have reasonable prices for their adorable treats.
The cupcakes I’ve had were $2.50, which is a lot more reasonable than $5. I wouldn’t buy a $5 cupcake.
Surely, under Komrade Obama’s facist government, there will only be ONE cupcake shop, The People’s Republik of Kupcakes. You will have to stand in line for 8 hours, and there’s only one flavor: PROLETARIAT STRUGGLE (with sprinkles).
Were any of these place to publish the nutritional info the bubble would burst pretty quickly. You figure you’re getting a samll nicely portioned dessert, how bad could it be, and you are probably consuming almost 800 calories including about 300 calories worth of fat. No wonder Cupcake Royales doesn’t list any nutritional info on their site. In fact they don’t even list the weight of the cupcakes, which would make it possible to make an accureate estimate (about 140 calories per ounce).
His predictions are right on the money. The “gourmet vendor trucks” are just starting though, so unfortunately I won’t read his article about their inevitable failure for three or four more years.
@7 um, fun!
Wait, why does ESPN care about this?
There go flour futures.
I’m cashing them and and switching to lithium.
@6
Bravo. And I have a new IM away message.
a) Anyone who thinks Cupcake Royale is indistinguishable from supermarket cupcakes should probably stick to supermarket cupcakes.
b) Anyone who thinks mistakenly thinks cupcakes are health food probably doesn’t think much about calorie count or fat content on a regular basis.
c) I just finished my carrot-cake cupcake and it was pure deliciousness. It may be a bubble, but it’s a tasty one!
Thank you, 13. Anyone who can’t tell a Trophy cupcake from a supermarket cupcake should not be writing about cupcakes.
You know the effect of this cupcake bubble meme? The effect is that I now want a cupcake, or 10. I’ll be happy to keep the industry on life support by buying six s’mores cupcakes from Trophy on Sunday.
@10 TMQ is a ridiculously long football column that’s about 30% football, 70% bloviation. It would fit in perfectly in The Stranger, actually, except that I think the guy writing it is as far to the right as the Stranger writers are to the left.
When cupcakes go out of style they’ll just bake a variety of other crap like any other bakery.
It all started last century when cupcake bakers unabashedly called their products, “muffins,” and marketed them as breakfast food. With a latte, you were already 1100 calories into your day.
Why, that sounds like a lot of the hipster food trash you guys advertise. You could almost turn the statement into a Mad Lib.
Seriously, though, weekly rag, quit giving Bethany money to buy $15 half empty plates with chef experiments on them. Most of us don’t eat that shit.
@ 13 I went to Cupcake Royale on Market on a Sunday morning. This was when they first opened, and I was pretty excited to try it out. I ordered a regular cupcake with chocolate frosting. For one, it was expensive there. My cupcake was about 3 bucks- add on a tall drip and it was well over a 5 dollar total. The cake very dry, tasteless, and crumbling apart. The frosting was way too sugary and lacked a creamy texture. I have had cupcakes 100 times better at my local grocery store, which happens to be Central Market. They have a wide selection of baked treats there to choose from. Never again will I go to a cupcake specialty shop. I would much rather buy “supermarket cupcakes” from Central Market, or better yet, bake my own.