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Sweet Treats: Cupcrazed Cakery Opens Second Location in Boone, Offers Variety of Desserts

Cupcrazed Cakery owner Wendy Shanahan

By Harley Nefe

Another sweet spot has landed in Boone that offers sugary goodies of all types to those around. 

Cupcrazed Cakery, which is owned by Wendy Shanahan, is an unique bakery that has been featured on Food Network’s Cupcake Wars and Rewrapped and has won both TV show competitions.

With the original bakery located in Ft. Mill, South Carolina, now the award-winning baked goods are available through a second location located on Blowing Rock Road under The Standard at Boone.

“We were looking to expand,” Shanahan said. “I’ve had a house in the area for five years, and I have always loved Boone. It’s a place a lot of people come to. We thought this would be a perfect spot to be able to make a place that could be part of the community where people can come to celebrate, come when they’re sad, treat themselves, treat their kids, have a place for parties and classes, have a place where you can meet up with friends or sit and study or have a business meeting — to be able to have a space that you can have events.”

When guests walk into the bakery, they are met with a splash of colors and whimsical design including a mural of an artsy cupcake that Shanahan painted herself. However, what really captures everyone’s attention is the sweet scent of all the freshly baked desserts that are on display. 

“On a daily basis, we have anywhere from 20-36 flavors of cupcakes available,” Shanahan said. “We always have a variety of cookies; we’ll make cakes; we have a variety of donuts daily in the morning, too. We also have coffee and drinks from your classic cup of coffee to frappés and Italian and cream sodas.”

Between the variety of cupcakes, cookies, cake pops, truffles, brownies, bars, macarons and more, there’s something for everyone to enjoy — even furry friends, as the bakery will be launching a line of dog treats shortly.

Baking has always been a passion for Shanahan. 

“It’s really learning to bake and being in the kitchen with my mom and coming up with ideas and just inspiration from things in life that we like and/or other people,” she said. “It’s always been something I’ve loved to do — having something that I’m able to be creative with and keep people happy is something I’ve always wanted to do, and now it’s happening.”

A number of the staff members have attended culinary school. 

“We’ve been doing it long enough, we look at what our volume is, and we bake accordingly,” she said. “We don’t bake just to put out a few items, we bake enough so somebody can walk in and buy dozens of cupcakes. It’s all about prepping and planning and paying attention to what our customers like.”

Shanahan said that red velvet cupcakes are always a classic, but the Reese’s and Oreo flavors are popular, too. 

The second location of Cupcrazed Cakery opened on August 14, and so far, Shanahan said business has been good.

“The community has been great,” she said. “We’ve gotten great feedback, and we have been fortunate enough to do some stuff with the college and local businesses already. We’ve been very fortunate to have an incredible staff and to be able to do it.”

However, the sweet offerings Cupcrazed Cakery has doesn’t stop there. Shanahan and her staff are currently working toward hosting cupcake and cookie decorating parties as well as classes to learn how to decorate cakes and other baked goods.

Registration for these events will soon be able to be made online on the bakery’s website at https://www.cupcrazed.com/. In addition to hosting events, Cupcrazed Cakery accepts custom orders for cakes for all types of celebrations.

“If you can bake it, we’ll make it,” Shanahan said. “There’s no order that’s too big that we can’t do.”

There are also a variety of specials going on throughout the week such as receiving a free donut with the purchase of a coffee on Monday. Two Dollar Tuesday is where cupcakes, cheesecakes and brownies are $2 all day. The bakery also offers 10% discounts to students, faculty, first responders and military.

To stay up to date on the latest offerings, people are encouraged to follow Cupcrazed Cakery on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, where staff post the daily cupcake flavors and specials every morning.

Parking is free for retail customers in The Standard at Boone, and the bakery’s hours of operation are Monday through Thursday 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Photos by Ken Ketchie: