Pinky’s: One of Life’s Guilty Pleasures

At Pinky’s Cupcakery, it’s not just about the cupcake but the total experience.

Sure, you can’t go wrong with a devilish Chocolate Temptation cupcake with mocha frosting inside, or a yummy Red Velvet Whoopee Pie, which consists of two tops of a cupcake and a generous slathering of white frosting in the middle.

But the owners of Pinky’s also wanted a place for family and friends to hang out and have a good time while sampling one of life’s guilty pleasures—the cupcake.

“We want Pinky’s to be the cool hangout place where you can come in and play games with your kids and have a treat,” said Vanessa Parker, owner of Pinky’s on Magnolia Ave. and Talbert St. “People can go lots of places and do other things, but a sweet treat always makes you happy. You can do that here with your friends or family.”

Vanessa and her husband, Eric, got the idea to open Fountain Valley’s first “cupcakery” when they were helping out some friends who own a cupcake shop in Huntington Beach called Lil Red’s Cupcakery. Eric did all the carpentry, like the massive display cases, and Vanessa did the interior decorating. One of their four children came up with the name “Pinky’s” to reflect all the colorings, flavorings and toppings available in a cupcake.

Pinky’s opened Dec. 5, and so far business has been “awesome,” Vanessa said, despite little advertising and not yet having an official grand opening.

“There are a lot of cupcake stores opening up all over the place, but if you have a good product you can compete with those bigger cake stores,” Vanessa said. “We do fabulous with our minis because people like the bite size. We do ice cream cupcakes, too.”

Eric is the baker. He arrives early each morning and bakes about a dozen different types of cupcakes from scratch. Vanessa comes in later after getting her kids—three boys ages 13, 11 and 6 and a girl, 4—to school, and then runs the business while Eric goes to his first job as a chiropractor in Huntington Beach.

“We knew typically there are vanilla cake lovers, chocolate cake lovers, and you have to have red velvet,” Vanessa said. “So we started with those as a base and experimented. We do a rotation, throw out different flavors and see how people react. If they like it we keep it, if not we give it the boot.”

Pinky’s currently offers about 10 different flavors of cake mixes and nearly two dozen types of flavors, including Tropic Thunder, Cheesy Cheese Cake, Churro, Mintalicious, PB&J, Raspberry Champagne, Campfire, Elvis Lives!, and Pinky’s Pumpkin and Pink Lemonade.

Full size cupcakes at Pinky’s are $3.00 each or two for $5.00. For 100-249 cupcakes the cost is $2.25 each, and for 249 or more they run $2.10 each. Mini cupcakes are $1.25 apiece or two for $2.00, and cupcakes that you can decorate yourself are $3.50 each. Pinky’s also offers cookies and cake pops, and an assortment of hot and cold drinks.

Looking for something special? Customers can call ahead and make special requests, within reason. One gentleman recently wanted a cupcake with an octopus hanging off the side, while another woman ordered a couple dozen cupcakes with a Star Wars theme.

“They ask can we put anything in our cupcake, but sometimes they put a little too much,” Vanessa said. “We had a party and a child put six gummy bears in a cupcake, put it in the oven, and it literally was like a volcano as it exploded in the oven. So now we say only one gummy bear. Who knew that gummy bears explode?”

Pinky’s already has hosted several parties in its first two months. There is a party room with music and games for kids. Customers can tour the kitchen wearing a baker’s hat, then make and bake six mini cupcakes, and add their own toppings at the topping bar.

Coming soon will be “Pinky Wars,” a team competition in which you make and decorate your own cupcakes, and a “Man-Up Challenge” in which contestants attempt to eat a giant cupcake within 20 minutes. A Man Up cupcake costs $30.00.

“It’s fun to see what they can come up with,” Vanessa said. “We didn’t want to be just a cupcake store, but come up with various things that people can do there.”

So what happens to the leftover cupcakes, you ask? They certainly don’t go to waste.

At the end of the day the Parkers give every unsold cupcake to charities, to different shelters, and to the fire and police departments. They have dropped off cupcakes to the local high school band and choir, and recently donated cupcakes to the Breast Cancer Angels for a fundraising event.

They believe that whatever can be done now will comeback tenfold.

“We hope the generosity will return, and it has,” Vanessa said. “Everybody says wait until after the first year, nothing happens until then, but we’re OK with that. We got a bank loan and did it all on our own, so we don’t have any overhead. Who knows? We might be opening up another store eventually. We just want everyone to enjoy our cupcakes whether they come into our store or not.”

 Pinky’s is located at 17908½ Magnolia Ave., Fountain Valley. Phone: (714) 965-3030. Hours: Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Closed Sundays.

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