All's right with the world again: Globe returns to trend stories not fully based in facts

By adamg on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 9:36am

The Globe today declares cupcakes are still a Thing in Boston:

Some trend-spotters have declared the cupcake fad over, but in Boston the confection is still growing strong.

Michael Pahre, however, points out an inconvenient truth: While Boston does, indeed, have six stores that sell only cupcakes, it used to have seven, until one failed and closed:

That would be right here in Brighton Center, where Cherry Bomb closed its doors recently at 379 Washington Street after what appears to have been less than one year in business. Bye-bye bacon, beer, and pepper cupcakes.

For those keeping track, that means fully 14% of Boston's cupcake stores have failed in the past few months.

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Comments

That sample size is too small!

By benos on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 9:46am.

I still like cupcakes! Evaluated in terms of their larger brethren, they're more creative than a birthday cake, it's easier to practice portion control (IN THEORY), and I don't know why, but the cake tastes better in cupcakes. I should point out I'm not a big fan of regular cake.

Hooray for cupcakes!

By Courtney2 on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 10:48am.

I feel the same way about cupcakes. I'm also not a big fan of cake, but there's something about a little round cakey morsel with frosting that sets my heart a flutter. I hope that Sweet (the cupcake place closest to me) is open for a long time!

Cherry Bomb was disgusting

By anon on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 10:27am.

As Michael points out: nothing but really strange combinations. I stopped in half a dozen times to view the selection, and every time, they were disgusting. They also had a huge store, and yet only about a dozen cupcakes on display in one shelf of one side of one display case.

Go to Kickass or Sweet and they've got racks and a dozen *kinds*...

And yet they still suck

By Stewart on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 4:02pm.

Neither Kickass nor Sweet is worth the powder it would take to blow them to hell. Kickass turns out dry, crumbly, flavorless product, and Sweet is far too true to its name: no subtlety, no flavor, just sugar. Bleah.

But Cherry Bomb signed their own death warrant before they even opened: the owner put up a Facebook page on which he openly denigrated the other bakers in his neighborhood, immediately making these guys look like arrogant pricks. I refused to ever step through their door just on general principles, and it looks like I wasn't the only one, since the bakeries this jag was dissing are still there and he's not. Fuck 'im.

This quote actually made a

By Cynic on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 12:15pm.

This quote actually made a good deal of sense:

“I think Boston is late to the trend,’’ says Joanne Chang, owner of Flour Bakery, which sells a full line of pastry, including cupcakes. “It’s only been here a couple of years, and it takes a while for it to cycle through and phase out..."

The pronouncements of the cupcake's demise proffered in the story come from New York and San Francisco; the stories of its enduring relevance come from elsewhere. So it's a typical fad or fashion - starting in the trendier precincts of the Big Apple and the West Coast, and peaking there fairly rapidly even as it began to gain wider circulation. Given that the oldest cupcake store in Boston was opened after the 2006 article cited in the introduction to the story, it looks like the Globe identified the wrong trend.

It's not that cupcakes defy predictions or prove unusually resilient. It's merely that we're about a decade behind the curve. Wonder why they didn't put that in a headline, huh?

Johnny on the Spot -

By jitterbug on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 2:46pm.

Ironically, Johnny Cupcakes is still going strong! Of course, they don't actually sell cupcakes...