Goodbye, cupcake. Shop that took chance on downtown Tacoma 15 years ago is closing

The pastel storefront at 1740 Pacific Ave. in downtown Tacoma was teeming on Thursday with customers awaiting their last chance to point at the pedestals of chai spice, hot cocoa, strawberry and carrot cupcakes. More than a couple of dedicated regulars pre-ordered a dozen for Sunday, when they would return for a final goodbye.

Hello, Cupcake, Tacoma’s pioneering cupcake bakery that opened in 2007, will close the doors Jan. 8, the owner announced this week.

“As sudden as this may seem,” wrote owner Allix Weber on Wednesday, “it’s a decision I’ve been forced to come to terms with after two long years of attempting to weather the storm of unpredictable circumstances, economic hardship, rising ingredient costs, and myriad other challenges.”

Speaking at a table tucked behind the buzz of the lunchtime cupcake crowd, she elaborated: The numbers just stopped making sense, and last year was especially difficult as pandemic relief funds ran dry, foot traffic stalled and staffing became a daily challenge, leading to shortened hours which dented sales.

“For a lot of small businesses, it’s just been a struggle,” said Weber, 35. “At a certain point, I can’t keep hoping it’s going to change.”

The situation “rebounded a bit,” she continued, but it fell short of what’s needed to sustain her from-scratch approach.

Every day, as early as 4 a.m., bakers arrived to whip fresh batter in more than a dozen flavors, scooping each treat by hand, mixing and piping fresh buttercream in various hues. What you see in images — nearly identical swirls of icing adorned with miniature cookies, cinnamon sticks and sprinkles — is what you see in-store.

“Quality and customer service — those were always my focus,” said Weber. “The fad came and went … but we are meticulous, down to the last detail.”

Fans flocked to the Tacoma shop for mainstay flavors like lemon, red velvet and chocolate on chocolate, and for limited-editions: lemon lavender, magical marshmallow, Shirley Temple, sugared cranberry, peach crumble.

On Thursday, one customer ordered six for today and a dozen hot cocoa, one of two monthly specials, to retrieve on Sunday.

Mary Cabrera enjoyed minis with her two young children, Caleb and Olivia. She has celebrated most every momentous occasion of her life in the past 15 years with Hello, Cupcake: her engagement, pregnancies, births, birthdays and anniversaries.

“Any celebration, it was a tradition,” she said. I asked if she dropped by on the occasional whim.

“I popped in too many times!” she laughed. “This was my feel-good in Tacoma, my treat-yourself. I don’t know what we’re gonna do.”

LET THERE BE CUPCAKES

Hello, Cupcake’s 2007 debut placed it squarely within the cupcake’s ascent nationwide, a trend sometimes attributed to a scene in HBO’s “Sex and the City,” where two of the leading ladies indulge on a bench outside Magnolia Bakery in the West Village. (There are currently 10 Magnolia Bakery locations, all but two in New York City.)

In 2003, a shop called Crumbs became the “gourmet cupcake” magnate to emulate, growing to dozens of stores before collapsing in 2014. (Interestingly, the defunct company just announced a resurgence, focused on supermarkets.) Other shops took the United States by storm in between, notably Georgetown Cupcakes in Washington, D.C., which had its own reality television show on TLC. Food Network also launched a competition show called “Cupcake Wars.” In Seattle, Trophy Cupcakes also opened in 2007 followed by Cupcake Royale; both operate several stores today.

Some posit that, at some point in the early 2010s, fancy doughnuts usurped the cupcake’s status as the victor of affordable, everyday indulgences.

For Weber, cupcakes still “feel extravagant” but manageable, in cost and effect.

“Especially those mini cupcakes — those are dangerous,” she laughed.

Her posts on Instagram and Facebook are awash in comments praising the care and quality of her iterations, and of cherished memories: a son’s birthday 13 years running, a wedding that then-bravely eschewed cake, a first date for a now-married couple, a teenager whose late father would always bring her here.

“The stories people are sharing have been a little bit … not what I was expecting,” said Weber. “We are typically part of their most special moments. It’s easy, doing this every day, to say, ‘We’re just making cupcakes.’ It’s nice to know that we did do that, and we have done that.”

Weber bought Hello, Cupcake in 2014 from the original owners, mother-and-daughter Reina Beach and Tina Miller. After graduating from college in 2009, her plans to teach elementary school changed with the job market. With a growing interest in baking, she was hired at the Pacific Avenue shop part-time and became a manager two years later. When the family was looking to sell, they asked her first.

Then in her mid-20s, Weber recalled saying, “What do you mean? I can’t own a business!”

Reflecting on the opportunity, she is thankful to have raised her daughter, now 6 and in kindergarten, with the flexibility that owning the shop provided. She has employed 8 to 12 people at a time.

Around Thanksgiving, after celebrating eight years of ownership in August, she realized she would need to cut staff to make ends meet. Reviewing the numbers on New Year’s Day, the “delayed effect” of the pandemic sunk in.

“I don’t think I could’ve done anything differently,” she said. Moving to a new location with more parking, expanding to a second store or a food trailer, borrowing more money — “It would just be a bigger version of the same thing.”

WHAT’S NEXT FOR PAC AVE?

Hello, Cupcake was a bright spot in an evolving stretch of downtown and a growing college campus. Its building, along with most of its neighbors, is owned by the University of Washington Tacoma.

Communications director John D. Burkhardt told The News Tribune the shop has been “a great long-term business partner,” one that played an important role in aiding the university’s goal to “foster a vital, dynamic retail presence in downtown Tacoma.”

Tenants were offered rent relief in the early months of the pandemic, he noted, and UWT has “been leaning in” to further assist where needed.

“The commercial landscape in downtown is very different today than it was up through 2019,” he said in an email. “Things have been hardest on retailers. Street traffic has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, and inflation is raising costs of inventory and labor.”

At the shop on Thursday, Stephanie Mann sat down with a friend for a final cupcake. She has worked in administration at UWT for about 10 years, she said, and the loss of this longstanding business stings.

“I said to him as we were walking in, ‘It’s quarter to 11 and we’re the only ones on the sidewalk,’” she told me, adding that a $5 cupcake was a rare splurge for students.

“When I started, it was $2.80!” said Weber. She raised prices incrementally over the years, but acknowledged, “I feel like we reached the limit of what customers would pay.”

Her ingredient costs, especially for dairy, have doubled since 2018. Others might have cut corners; she refused to waver from her commitment to high-quality, handmade goods.

“I hope it’s not unsustainable to be this kind of bakery,” she replied when asked if being an independent, single-location business with a singular offering in an area with ostensibly high foot-traffic — what downtown Tacoma strives to offer — was a relic of another era. “I liked it being a destination down here. It was special. You need some sort of excuse to indulge.”

By noon, at least 20 customers had decided they had their alibi.

This story was originally published January 6, 2023 at 5:00 AM.