Sprinkles Cupcakes To Open Its Doors on Tuesday
Get ready for red velvet, chai latte, ginger lemon, banana dark chocolate, and more cute-as-can-be, freshly baked, no-need-to-share treats when Sprinkles Cupcakes opens on Sept. 23 at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto.
Yes, the cupcake bakery that’s all the rage with Tyra Banks, Oprah, Katie Holmes (Mrs.Tom Cruise), and other celebs is finally putting down sugary roots in the Bay Area. Other Sprinkles bakeries can be found in Beverly Hills, Newport Beach, Dallas, and Scottsdale. You can spot them easily by the lines outside the doors.
It’s only fitting that Pastry Chef-Proprietor Candace Nelson and her co-owner/husband Charles Nelson open a shop here. After all, Candace’s French-American great grandmother, Margaret Craig, owned three successful restaurants in the Bay Area for more than 20 years. Candace and Charles also are two former Silicon Valley tech investment bankers who spent long hours crunching numbers for others while they longingly dreamed of baking cupcakes. (Hey, I would, too!)
It wasn’t long before Candace left finance and enrolled in the professional pastry program at Tante Marie’s Cooking School in San Francisco.
 
Sprinkles cupcakes are baked in small batches throughout the day, and contain no preservatives, trans fats, or artificial flavors. Its cupcake mixes also are sold at Williams-Sonoma stores.
The bakery’s boxes, plates, napkins, and shopping bags are made from recycled materials. Any unsold cupcakes left over at the end of the day at the Palo Alto bakery will be donated to InnVision, Silicon Valley’s largest provider of housing and services to the homeless.
I know the Stanford Mall is close but I haven’t been there in maybe 15 years or so. I may have to make a special trip there one of these days just for the cupcakes!
I can’t even tell you how much I would give to inhale one of those cupcakes right now, but it would be an obscene amount. I’ve had a rough week, and they look exceptionally good.
Wow, that’s really neat to read. I had no idea about the origins of Sprinkles. I currently have three of their cupcakes in my freezer because the line is SO long in the Beverly Hills location that I stock up. They freeze really well and then I get to take a special treat with me to work every once in awhile. I know people might think $3 or more for a cupcake is a lot, but I don’t. Restaurants charge more than that for a pastry of the same size. Heck, I paid $3.95 this morning for my Starbucks grande pumpkin spiced latte.
I’ve had a lot of cupcakes in my day…in fact, 86 in one sitting at the LA Cupcake Challenge a few months ago, and Sprinkles remains one of my favorites. My parents, who live in the South Bay, will be very excited to visit this Stanford location; I’ll be sure to pass on the info!
Oooh, sounds like it’s time for me to get another CalTrains ticket so I can get down to Palo Alto and check these out! I hope they don’t import the lines, though.
OMG – you’ve totally ruined my work day … how can I sit in my home office knowing that Sprinkles are so close by 🙂
Breaking cupcake news!
Kara’s Cupcakes opened 10 days ago across the road from Sprinkles. Yes, Kara’s is open at the Town & Country Village, 855 El Camino Real, Suite 50, in Palo Alto. The Kara’s slated to open in Santana Row in San Jose is expected to open sometime in October.
OMG, those photos are gorgeous!!