Cupcake aficionados are heaving a sigh of relief this weekend as it was revealed on Friday evening that Crumbs Bake Shop will not be closing its doors after all. In a surprise announcement early last week, the world's largest cupcake chain said it would be closing all of its 48 locations in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Fans were stunned and immediately rushed to their nearest shops to snatch up as many of the cake confections as they could carry in one trip, and then went back for more.
For diehard Crumbs followers it was akin to the Twinkie scare of a couple of years ago. Someone has even gone as far as auctioning off what is touted as "the last cupcake from Crumbs Bake Shop" on eBay for the bargain price of $250. A check on eBay's website shows that more people have jumped into the fray offering the multi-flavored delicacies with prices ranging from $50 for a coconut cupcake to $500 for a Crumbs Bake Shop Cupcake Kit. Pretty hefty pricing when you consider that Crumb's sells their cupcake for around $5 per. Guess they haven't heard the news that Marcus Lemonis, the owner of Dippin' Dots and host of the CNBC reality show The Profit, is stepping in to save Crumbs from closing its doors permanently.
Lemonis and Fischer Enterprises L.L.C. have formed a joint venture, Lemonis Fischer Acquisition Company, which plans to pick up the shops. Crumbs, which currently trades OTC, will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection before opening its doors once again as a private entity. In the meantime, investors are happy as the price for the company's shares have skyrocketed almost 1,200 percent after the Lemonis news.
The company has seen its share of woes recently. It defaulted on a $14.3 million repayment and was then delisted from The Nasdaq. The cupcake chain also accumulated losses amounting to $3.8 billion in the first fiscal quarter of 2014. That's almost double the losses it had incurred a year earlier.
Meanwhile, Lemonis says he plans to expand the company's product line by making it a sweets and snack shop after he incorporates his candy chain, Sweet Pete's Candy, into the lineup. The news must come as a relief to Crumbs' 165 full-time employees and 655 part-timers, as well as to cupcake lovers nation-wide.
Crumbs fanatics have been saved and won't have to fork over $50 dollars for, what must be by now, a pretty stale cupcake on eBay. They can sit back and patiently (in some cases) wait for Lemonis and company to reopen their favorite treat shops. In the meantime, a Twinkie or two may help with the cravings.