vip in the city

More cupcakes

First late-night Thursday. But before heading uptown, I stopped in for the grand opening of the Crumbs Bake Shop flagship store on 8th Street, between Broadway and University — deep in the heart of NYU territory.

The new shop is touted as more of a café than its other three NYC locations — there’s a fourth in East Hampton — with ample seating, late night hours, Wi-Fi access and a tapas dessert menu.

After a writeup in everyone’s favorite NYC blog touting “Free Cupcakes!” on opening day, I was half-expecting a mob scene among the baked goods. The atmosphere inside, though, was remarkably civilized — perhaps due in part to the late-ish hour, or the very mini nature of the mini-cupcake samples.

I recognized some of the offerings from the shop on the Upper West Side, including the elusive Red Velvet cupcake.

The proliferation of cupcake shops around town predates the New York Times feature from 2003, the year Crumbs hit the scene. Thank (or blame) Sex and the City for the renaissance.

And although Crumbs was not a player, all this calls to mind the New York Magazine piece on the “Cupcake Wars” that came out a year later, focusing on the lawsuit between Jennifer Appel, owner of Buttercup Bakeshop (and former co-owner of West Village bane Magnolia Bakery) and her former Buttercup manager, Mark Libertini, over the opening of his copycat Little Cupcake Bakeshop in Bay Ridge. Oh the drama!

There's 1 comment so far ... More cupcakes

Qsoz
December 22, 2006

Larger cupcakes probably don’t go stale as quickly as small ones.

Go for it ...