Sprinkles Cupcakes, the specialty chain that started out in a private kitchen and grew to fuel a craze for cupcakes sold in bakeries and vending machines that played a song with each sale, is no more.
The announcement of the treats going away was made by Candace Nelson, who sold the California-based business to a private equity firm, KarpReilly LLC, in 2012. She said on social media that the company’s final day was Dec. 31. Neither she nor the firm explained the reason for the chain’s closure.
“As many of you know, I started Sprinkles in 2005 with a KitchenAid mixer and a big idea,” Ms. Nelson said on Instagram. While she no longer has a role in the business, she added, “it’s surreal to see this chapter come to a close — and it’s not how I imagined the story would unfold.”
On Friday, the company’s website showed there were “no products” available for nationwide shipping. An offer for a New Year’s Eve dozen cupcakes went to a “page not found.”
“When it’s gone, it’s gone,” the locations link said.
Cupcakes, unlike many other sweet treats, have maintained a small town vibe — even though they are favored by celebrities and social media influencers, and have a following on TikTok. Sprinkles Cupcakes helped to fuel a sweet craze that included competitors like Crumbs Bake Shop and Baked by Melissa. The company and its products were featured on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and its stores became known for attracting long lines of customers.
The company’s philosophy of getting cupcakes to the people was considered innovative. It set up a Sprinklesmobile in 2013, also described by KarpReilly as the “world’s first cupcake truck,” and stocked cupcakes in custom vending machines.
“Raise a hand if you’ve been personally victimized by the cupcake A.T.M. jingle,” Ms. Nelson wrote in a video showing her buying a cupcake from an A.T.M.-like vending machine, which blares a catchy Sprinkles song as it dispenses a cupcake, to the apparent embarrassment of some consumers on TikTok.
With 50 locations, the business had become, as Ms. Nelson put it last year, “such an operational challenge” after growing to 10 locations in the United States and one overseas. She added that she and her husband, Charles, a co-founder, decided they needed to bring someone in with “operational expertise.”
KarpReilly, a private firm, said it had made its investment in the Beverly Hills bakery, describing it as a “high growth consumer” brand. KarpReilly did not reply to a request for comment on the chain’s demise on Friday.
Ms. Nelson asked fans to share their memories online. Some of her followers expressed regret over the sales of businesses that start personal, expand and then are sold off to private equity firms.
“In high school I used to take my friends and late night drive into downtown Chicago just so we could get cupcakes at the A.T.M.,” wrote Charlotte Gage, a digital creator who posts travel content.
One woman wrote about her cravings while pregnant and how workers at one of the bakery’s locations, which had just closed, provided her with cupcakes as she peered at them through the window.
Sprinkles approach to never letting its fans go without cupcakes inspired the installation of its 24-hour vending machines at airports, stores and other venues, including three Manhattan locations in Midtown, Downtown and on the Upper West Side.
One of the vending machines popped up in 2012 at its storefront on Lexington Avenue, which took the place of Gino, the restaurant where Marilyn Monroe would often eat with her second husband, Joe DiMaggio, and later with her third, Arthur Miller. In 2009, Oprah Winfrey ordered hundreds of Sprinkles Cupcakes delivered to her studio, and the “Cupcake Wars” TV show on the Food Network featured Ms. Nelson as one of their judges.
Crumbs cupcakes also started as the products of a single bakery on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in 2003, and the company innovated as well, veering afield of traditional flavors to incorporate crushed M&M’s and Girl Scout cookies. But its growth may have come too fast. Its costs swelled as it expanded and in 2014 and it, too, closed after trading on its shares was suspended on Nasdaq.
The products’ disappearance seems all the more surprising as American culture has embraced cupcakes as tiny, rotund treats with a heavy cap of frosting and an expansive range of flavors.
Fans mourned the brand’s extinction and the payoff the tiny cakes represented after a long day of studying or even as alternatives to traditional wedding cakes.
Christine Hauser is a Times reporter who writes breaking news stories, features and explainers.
The post Sprinkles Cupcakes, the Bakery That Sold From A.T.M.s, Closes Suddenly appeared first on New York Times.
