Oh, hello, Bellevue.

Oh, hello, Bellevue. Nice to meet you! We've seen you sitting over there for awhile now, and we thought maybe it was about time we came over. We want in on all the Bellevue fun, and as a token of our friendship, we’re bringing cupcakes! Seattle’s Best Cupcakes, actually. See, we’ve been over here in Seattle for seven years now, baking our cupcakes fresh from scratch each and every day using mostly local, organic, and sustainable ingredients. We make ‘em with love, the way Grandma did, and we hand-frost each and every one with real American buttercream. It’s been a super sweet seven years, and we are proud to call Capitol Hill, Ballard, Madrona, and West Seattle home. And now, we’re just plain tickled pink to add Bellevue to our family of neighborhood cupcake goodness. And we think you might just get a little bit excited too…

Bygone days are here again...now with buttercream!

Our fifth cupcake café is gonna be an extravaganza of cupcake and coffee Americana goodness! The newest addition to the Cupcake Royale family will make its home in one of America's original IHOP buildings, complete with all the architectural charm and whimsy of those bygone days. Remember the A-frames and the wood paneling? As Jody likes to say, this is "what our café would have looked like had we opened in 1971." We're lucky enough to work once again with Roy McMakin on a quick and easy, guerilla-style makeover, to create a hip and homey neighborhood cupcake café that we think you’ll really love.

This café is going to be special for sure. A little bit different from our Seattle locations, this one will celebrate the history of the building and the quirkiness of the original design with a sweet and sassy combo of found decor, relics from the original IHOP, and custom pieces created especially for Cupcake Royale, like the 30-person, Doug Fir picnic table where you and all your friends can hang out on our patio. For those of you who frequented the original IHOPs of yore, you may remember those cool open kitchens. Well, we’re keeping that, too! The café will feature a wide-open kitchen where wide-eyed cupcakers of all ages can marvel at the magic of our behind-the-scenes operations.

The perfect partner for all this cupcake love? STUMPTOWN! We'll be the first café in Bellevue to be brewing those legendary Stumptown beans. That's right, people! We're bringing the very best, small-batch, freshly roasted beans in the whole wide world to Bellevue. And for those lazy days at home, we'll feature a fine little assortment of whole beans and home-brewing equipment.

Hold on! There’s more! The new café will open its doors at the end of this month, and we know it sure wouldn’t be very Royale of us to get our brand new friends-and-neighbors-to-be all excited about the impending cupcake funtimes…and then leave them waiting. So…the piece de résistance...THE MOBILE CUPCAKE PARTY-CART! Starting this very morning, we are debuting the first-ever mobile cupcake cart. It's like a hot dog cart, only way more awesome, and filled with cupcakes. We'll be parkin' our cart in the parking lot and serving up fresh-baked goodness to our new friends and neighbors until the doors to the café are officially open. We sure would love it if you stopped by and said hello. Anyone who gets a cupcake from the cart will also get a thank you card good for a free coffee when the doors to the café finally do open. Once the café is open for business, the Cupcake Party-Cart will head out into the world, available for birthdays, company parties, weddings, anniversaries, you name it!

Takin' sweet to the street.

So, to sum it all up, short and sweet:

WHAT: A new Cupcake Royale in Bellevue!

WHERE: 21 Bellevue Way NE, in that sweet old IHOP building!

WHEN: End of the month, but until then, get your cupcake on with us at our MOBILE CUPCAKE PARTY-CART in the parking lot!

WHY: Because we love you.

Cupcake Royale Is Expanding And We Need YOU!

Big news! We’re excited to let our friends, here on our blog, be the first to know that we are opening a new store. Can you guess where? Here’s some clues…

• The city has a total area of 33.9 square miles, of which, 30.8 square miles of it is land and 3.2 square miles of it (9.29%) is water
• Founded in 1869, the name is French for "beautiful view"
• Named number 1 in CNN Money's list of the best places to live and launch a business
• Also named the 4th best place to live in America
• This city is in the top 7% in the state for well-paid-single men and top 4% for well-paid-single women
• It’s one of the 25 safest cities in America
• Both Ann and Nancy Wilson, co-founders of the band Heart, are said to reside here

Write your answer down on a piece of paper (so you won’t cheat) and then scroll down to see if you are right…

The answer is BELLEVUE! If you are so super smart that you figured that out, you must be passionate about the Bellevue community – and that’s the type of folks we are looking to hire! So, if you also love the art of great coffee and delicious cupcakes, we’d like to hear from you for the positions of: Cupcake Bakers, Baristas, Frosters.

We are looking for baristas who have a passion for hand crafted artisan coffee. And bakers and frosters who enjoy baking cake from scratch with local ingredients in large batches with high quality and productivity standards. Our values center around having fun, working hard as a team, creating an engaging customer service experience, being kind to our environment, giving back to community efforts and a passion for your work and sharing your enthusiasm with customers.

• Baristas should be experienced with 1+ years of artisan coffee crafting and engaging customer service and an appreciation for scratch-baked goods.

• Bakers should be experienced with 1+ years in high-volume production baking with attention to detail and ability to work collaboratively in teams, attention to detail, pride in work, reliable.

• Frosters should be able to learn and work quickly, be able to prioritize, have a high level of customer service and be flexible and prompt.

Qualified folks should apply by sending a resume and cover letter to cupcakes1111@gmail.com explaining why you’d be a good fit. Thanks for your interest!

By the way, not only do you get to surround yourself with coffee and cupcakes, but here’s a few additional tidbits to sweeten the deal:

• We offer benefits to our super stellar crew: medical insurance for 30+ hours/week, 401K, all you can drink espresso, great deals on cupcakes and merchandise…plus cool co-workers!
• We use all natural, wholesome ingredients in our tasty, fresh-baked cupcakes, and we get them from local farmers whenever we can. Even our flour is local – grown on a no-till co-op by our pal Farmer Fred in Eastern Washington, and specially milled just for us.
• We only brew the best beans: Stumptown! They travel worldwide to source and roast the best coffees available anywhere. Developing partnerships with farms to share in a belief that working together year after year results in the highest level of quality.
• We are a green, locally owned, indie business. We not only recycle, but we compost as well, and we use compostable packaging as much as possible, too, from paper cups to soy ink to corn-based plastic.
• We give over 25,000 cupcakes a year to local non-profits to give back to our community.

Cupcake-Powered Radio

You know we love the KEXP. What's not to love? Great bands. Great DJs. And it's all made possible by you, the oh-so-savvy listener. Well, you and all the sweet Seattle businesses that support KEXP by underwriting. If ever there was a win-win situation, underwriting for KEXP would have to be the win-winniest. We hear our favorite fellow local businesses mentioned on KEXP all the time, and it just makes us feel good. All of us community-minded music lovers pooling our resources to keep the tunes a comin'. 

Recently, our buddy Rob over at KEXP asked Jody to record a testimonial about why she underwrites for KEXP...and has since day one! That's 7 years of cupcake-powered radio, people. Super. Sweet. 

Rock on, KEXP. Here's to 7 more years of cupcake love headed your way.

WORLD CUPcakes!

That's right people! Cupcaker extraordinaire, Kim, just got her vuvuzela on and has the sweet pics to show it. It would appear that cupcakes have some big time international appeal. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the cupcakes of South Africa!



First stop: Tasha's in Joburg. What better way to celebrate after the Ghana match than with a deeeelicious Red Velvet? Ahhh, like a little taste of home.

Speaking of home...



USA! USA! USA!

Back to the cupcakes.



You know our girl Kim gets the Royale treatment wherever she goes. This here is the head pastry chef at the Mount Nelson in Cape Town, personally serving up some scrumptious lemon cupcakes fresh from the oven for high tea. That's right. High tea. Not to be confused with Hi-C. Or 5 Alive.

So, how did these lemon lovelies match up in a head to head contest with our April Cupcake of the Month, Lemon Mascarpone? It was close, but you just can't beat that creamy mascarpone goodness. Royale wins!



USA! USA! USA!

Alright, alright. Back to the cupcakes.



Here's a sweet peek at the ooey-gooey-drippy-goodness of the cupcakes at a seaside bakery on the way to Cape of Good Hope. With their decadent icings and deliciously fudgy aromas, this batch was particularly difficult to keep from the hippos.



Who you callin' hippo? It's all fun and games until someone loses a cupcake.

Free + babycake = Freebiecake

Another month, another ridiculously delicious cupcake. We are tickled pink (even pinker than usual) that it is finally June, and Seattle is about to get its summer on. We're all too aware of the fact that waiting for that summer sun to shine down on the Emerald City can be a looooooooong process, so we've got a tasty little tropical treat to keep you smilin' until it does: Toasted Coconut Lime cupcakes.

Yes, people. We did it. We so went there. We put the lime in the coconut and baked it all up. The result? An island escape for your taste buds. Boom. So good! Moist, summery coconut cake gets a tangy topping of real lime buttercream. We cover that with delicious, golden brown flakes of toasted coconut goodness for a cupcake that is almost too tasty for words. Uh, it's also apparently too tasty for pictures.

So...get on in here and try one! Better yet, try one on the house! Come on in to any Cupcake Royale on Saturday June 5th or Sunday June 6th and tell us your favorite tropical hot spot, and we'll treat you to a Toasted Coconut Lime babycake.

Free + babycake = Freebiecake
Get one.

Aaaaaand...Cupcakes + Muppets = AWESOME
Enjoy.

So Fresh.

We know you're busy. We know life is hard. So we like to make it easy. We already have four convenient cupcake café locations, and we deliver all over Seattle and the Eastside. But, we like to think we can do more. Our newest cupcake perk for all you sweet-lovin' Seattlites: Cupcake Royale cupcakes are now available on AmazonFresh!

That's right, people! When you get your groceries online from Amazon's local grocery delivery service, AmazonFresh, you can now add a box (or two, or three...) of freshly baked cupcakes from Cupcake Royale to your order. And it all starts...today!

We've got three special 4-packs you can add to this week's grocery list: Favorites 4-Pack, Chocolate Lovers 4-Pack, and everyone's favorite new kid on the block, the Salted Caramel 4-Pack. PLUS, you can even get a 6-Pack of assorted babycakes.


So salty. So caramel-y. Cupcake magic.

And to sweeten the deal - literally - we're just plain old givin' it away to folks with orders of $150 or more. Yup indeedy. Get yourself $150 worth of groceries at AmazonFresh between now and Sunday, and you'll get the Favorites 4-Pack hook-up! That's one Classic, one Dance Party, one Lemon Drop, and one Royale with Cheese, on the house.



Because every mom deserves her very own Dance Party.


We are super psyched about this new funtime fresh-lovin' friendship with the folks over at AmazonFresh. You know we make sure our cupcakes are only the freshest and most delicious by baking them from scratch DAILY, using premium local ingredients like hormone-free dairy, certified-humane eggs, and specially milled, no-till flour from Farmer Fred and Farmer Karl at Shepherd's Grain.

Local. Fresh. Delicious! It's just the Royale way.

We got the pepper.

That's right, people! The Chocolate Scorcher, everyone's favorite little fireball of a chocolate cupcake is back as our May Cupcake of the Month. Moist chocolate cake and rich, chocolaty cream cheese frosting, infused with the heat of guajillo chiles and warm hints of cinnamon and orange oil.

Once again, we've teamed up with our partners in goodness over at Theo Chocolate. This fiery beast is made with their tantalizingly tasty, organic Spicy Chile dark chocolate.

It's sweet meets heat, and it's just in time for Cinco de Mayo. Spice up your celebration by ordering up a batch of these hot tamales!


Click to order yours now. And don't forget - we deliver! To Seattle and the Eastside.