From Contract Magazine....

Georgetown Cupcake Designs for Sweeter Business

Photo by Powers & Crewe

Interior view of Georgetown Cupcake's flagship store in Georgetown

When it comes to design, Washington, D.C.-based Georgetown Cupcakes proves you can have your cake and eat it too. The gourmet retail chain, owned by Sophie LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis, recently opened its new flagship store in Georgetown, as well as a second location in Bethesda, Md. Both stores, designed by Washington, D.C.-based CORE architecture + design, do well to portray the growing brand’s identity to its customers.

Led by Peter F. Hapstak, III, AIA, IIDA, CORE’s design presents a simple and quaint, yet definitive statement that is nothing less than chic. Only a few light colors were used throughout the approximate 1,000-sq.-ft. space in order to keep the cupcakes themselves the design focal point. Crisp white counter facings and light pine countertops and flooring give a modern homey feel, while soft peach-colored walls add a hint of warmth to provide the perfect backdrop to the towering displays of colorful cupcakes.

“We kind of took the hodgepodge of their identity and really made it a brand,” says CORE’s principal architect and designer Peter Hapstak. “It was all about simplicity. The concept of less is more—to give the most simplistic sense of design in the broader sense of creating a billboard. The whole fact is that their product sitting on pedestals behind the counter was the brand, made the brand, made the identity. We wanted to make everything else disappear behind the idea of the homegrown cupcake.”

And CORE even brought that new brand look to the outside of the store as well, replacing the old brick façade with white woodwork that more closely resembled the light interior elements. In fact, the exterior gave the area such a needed facelift that the Mayor of Washington, D.C. Adrian Fenty actually wrote the sisters a letter thanking them for their contribution to the landscape.

The motif for both locations was drawn from Georgetown Cupcake’s original branch, located in a “borrowed” storefront on Potomac Street where the sisters had initially set up shop. But with sales growing from media attention, such as mentions from Martha Stewart, the pair needed to expand and better define their store brand.

“It’s really not so much about the design as it is the opportunity,” says Hapstak. “We find that what we do—design—is a byproduct of our process. For us it’s really finding a business plan and turning it into a successful strategy. The result is a phenomenal product.”

Since the stores’ completion in late December, the sisters have taken on starring roles in the TLC’s new reality show “The Cupcake Sisters.” According to Hapstak, the flagship store brings in an estimated $15,000 per day in cupcake sales, and there was a line of customers 100 yards long when the Bethesda branch opened.

Full Article Here!