My girlfriend loves to bake. And her cupcakes are to die for. She was thinking about selling cupcakes by setting up a table at the nearby Metro Station (we live in the Washington D.C. area). Aside from whether or not she can get away with selling this way without some sort of street permit (we are going to look into this) we know that she will have to rent a commercial kitchen to be within the law.
What we don’t know is whether the whole cupcake thing is a passing trend.
She was all excited about this until I showed her an article in Slate about the cupcake bubble:
The current recession, which started in late 2007, laid the groundwork for the recent proliferation of cupcake stores in American cities. Lots of people know how to make really tasty cupcakes, which are simple products with cheap basic ingredients. Baking cupcakes doesn’t require a large amount of capital investment, and it’s relatively easy to scale up without hiring lots of workers. It takes about as much labor to produce three dozen cupcakes as it does to make one dozen. Meanwhile, storefronts in heavily trafficked areas became cheaper with the decimation of local retail. And so in the past year, casual baking has turned into an urban industry.
So, we’re thinking it’s still not to late to start out with cupcakes and then add another product like granola or cookies. Then we could transition into these new products as people lost interest in cupcakes. She wanted to just get started at the metro, but then find a cheap storefront since rents are down…just like the Slate writer Daniel Gross says.
So, what do you think?
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Is It Too Late to Open a Cupcake Business
Cupcakes on the bubble?
My girlfriend loves to bake. And her cupcakes are to die for. She was thinking about selling cupcakes by setting up a table at the nearby Metro Station (we live in the Washington D.C. area). Aside from whether or not she can get away with selling this way without some sort of street permit (we are going to look into this) we know that she will have to rent a commercial kitchen to be within the law.
What we don’t know is whether the whole cupcake thing is a passing trend.
She was all excited about this until I showed her an article in Slate about the cupcake bubble:
So, we’re thinking it’s still not to late to start out with cupcakes and then add another product like granola or cookies. Then we could transition into these new products as people lost interest in cupcakes. She wanted to just get started at the metro, but then find a cheap storefront since rents are down…just like the Slate writer Daniel Gross says.
So, what do you think?