The Cupcake Spot - Click for Larger Photo

Okay, it was bound to happen. Me talking about good things to eat, that is. I wasn’t sure if I was going to publish posts about shops or businesses or restaurants, but, really, why not? They are all a part of what makes St. Petersburg a fun place to be. I promise I won’t turn my blog into some sort of personal Consumer Reports platform, but I think that it’s okay for me to talk about places that I think you’d love to know about. So, if a shop or a store or a restaurant really strikes me, I will tell you about it. Probably no more than a couple of times a month. And if you know of a great place that you think others would love, please tell me about it, either by commenting or by emailing me – my contact information is always available in the right hand column.

So, today I’m talking about a bakery. But not just any bakery – a cupcake bakery. My wife and I have been to great cupcake shops in Manhattan and in Georgetown, and we kept wishing that one would come to St. Petersburg. Well, now it has!

It’s the Cupcake Spot, and it’s located on the north side of Central Avenue, just west of 4th Street. You can’t miss it – they have a goofy little logo character called ‘Cuppy’, who looks like a walking cupcake, and there are signs outside with Cuppy on them. Sometimes, the signs change. One day, my wife and I were driving by and were considering whether we had time to stop to pick up some cupcakes. A Cuppy sign beckoned with the words, “You know you want me!’ coming from his ‘mouth’! He was right – we did want him, badly!

Our St. Petersburg Cupcake Spot in not the first one around – Cuppy actually began a couple of years ago in Tampa, at the hands of Nicole Rogers Longo and her husband, Doug Longo. They obviously did it right, because they’ve been popular since the day they opened, and once they decided to come to St. Petersburg to open another shop, they doubled their fan base. There are about 16 flavors that are on their regular menu, plus some other specials that appear from time to time. The cupcakes are as delicious as their names are creative – some of the choices are Va-Va-Vanilla, Forget Love, I’d Rather Fall in Chocoloate, Paint the Town Red Velvet, and Butterscotch Babies. My absolute favorite is the ‘Better Than’, with chocolate frosting – it’s a chocolate chip cupcake, but with the heavy and buttery texture of a pound cake, and you can get it frosted with either chocolate buttercream frosting or sour cream frosting. Food of the Gods…

If you want to know more about Cuppy, his creators, the cupcakes themselves, or anything at all about The Cupcake Spot, go to Cuppy’s web site. But if you really want to get to know the story, just stop by and taste the cupcakes. I promise you’ll be very glad you did!