Classy Girl Cupcakes’ social media post last month was soul-crushing – a dual birthday/closing announcement. The bakery (825 N. Jefferson St.) that opened during a period of explosive cupcake popularity (2010) is now shuttering, permanently. Its last day is Dec. 23.
Owner Erica Elia did not hold back in her closing announcement: “Doing what we do is expensive,” she wrote. “Every time I raise prices due to skyrocketing costs, I hope the business we lose reduces how hard my employees have to work, but it never quite happens. We are so busy, too busy at times, but still we can’t get ahead. I have been running a nonprofit for years, and I’ve kept this bakery open out of sheer will and stubbornness. I am tired and out of ideas, so it is time for me to move on.”
Elia opened Classy Girl after making cupcakes for her own wedding. Guests asked where she got them. “It just kind of all happened,” she says. “I wasn’t really planning to do it. [When] I realized how much people liked them, I thought, wait a minute, I have to do this.”
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About two years into the bakery’s life, Elia added decorated occasion cakes to Classy Girl’s offerings. In riding the wave of cupcake fever, the bakery has had some monumental highs – such as bringing Cupcake Fest to the Mitchell Park Domes in 2015, and making the wedding cake for the first gay couple in Milwaukee joined by civil union.
“I know we will leave a cupcake shaped hole in the heart of this community, as nobody does what we do, the way we do it,” continued the Classy Girl closing post.
But this is not supposed to be a sad story, Elia says. Classy Girl’s head baker, Rachel, plans to open her own bakery using many of the cupcakery’s recipes and designs.
Elia concluded her post, “I am so grateful for all of your support over the years, and I hope you will stop in or place one last order in the next month. We would love to see you! And then your super easy New Year’s resolution can be ‘No cupcakes til Rachel opens her bakery’:)”
Classy Girl’s hours for these last few weeks are Tues-Fri 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sat 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
