"The cupcake boom, a twenty-year dessert trend that once captivated the nation, ended with a thunk. However, America's sweet tooth doesn't retire - it just hunts for its next obsession. When all ofSprinkles' stores abruptly closed at the end of 2025, a curtain dropped on an era. Not because the dessert chain, cofounded by pastry chef and entrepreneur Candace Nelson in 2005, was the biggest, but because it was the name-brand symbol of the nation's cupcake years."
"Timing matters. As restaurant chains face higher costs and more cautious consumers who have less patience for one-note indulgences, the sudden disappearance of a once-dominant dessert brand underscores how little room there is for concepts that don't necessarilydrive frequent repeat visits. Asit Sharma, a senior investing analyst at The Motley Fool, put it bluntly: " Sprinkles Cupcakes just punched way beyond its weight in the public imagination than it ever did on the ground.""
The cupcake boom spanned roughly twenty years before collapsing as Sprinkles closed all stores at the end of 2025. Sprinkles, cofounded by Candace Nelson in 2005, became the emblem of the cupcake craze despite operating fewer than 100 stores at its peak. The chain helped popularize cupcake-only bakeries and benefited from Nelson's visibility as a judge on Cupcake Wars. The brand's sale to private equity KarpReilly in 2012 shifted priorities toward profits rather than expansion. Rising operating costs and more cautious consumers reduced demand for single-note indulgences, exposing the cyclical, boom-and-bust nature of dessert fads and the limits on repeat visits.
Read at Business Insider
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