In the heady, stomachache-y days of 2010, it seemed this moment would never come. It felt like we’d be forever surrounded by cupcakes, with their stale, flavorless cake and their sugary, flavorless icing. No more proper cakes, no more cookies, no more pie. Just a zombie army of cupcakes.
NOPE. The craze is officially dead. The Wall Street Journal reports that at close of business yesterday, Crumbs announced it was shutting all its stores. In lieu of flowers, please spend your money on gourmet donuts:
“Regrettably Crumbs has been forced to cease operations and is immediately attending to the dislocation of its devoted employees while it evaluates its limited remaining options,” the company said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal. Those options could include a bankruptcy filing, the spokeswoman said.
“My God, who could’ve seen this coming?” said absolutely no one with any sense. The chain went public three years ago, at the height of the cupcake boom, growing to 48 stores in 10 states, like buying a luxury condo in Miami in 2007. Now they’re left with frosting on their faces and bits of yellow cake in their hair, the bubble having exploded in their faces. After years of losses, the ailing company was delisted from NASDAQ earlier this week, and that’s pretty much all she wrote.
Even if some private equity firm swoops in and reopens a few stores, it’s pretty clear the cupcake craze is done. Finito. Pour one out for the two broke girls. Within five years we’ll all be back to Duncan Hines D.I.Y. cupcakes and 2007 – 2014 will be nothing more than a half-remembered fever dream.
Now we’re left with yogurt, a sea of self-serve yogurt weirdly flavored to resemble proper ice cream. (Can’t wait to see what all those gleaming froyo dispensaries are converted into in six years, after that boom collapses!) It’s fake healthy, it’s dissatisfying and the music is always too damn loud. Please submit your best theories re: the psychosexuality of yogurt in the comments below.
Why can’t we get a decent dessert craze, like iced sugar cookies or slices of pie?
Photo via 578foot/Shutterstock.