The News I Never Expected to Hear

Sprinkles Cupcakes 2005-2025

Sprinkles, the company I founded in 2005 and sold in 2012, has closed its doors. I have no ownership or operational involvement in the company. But that doesn’t change how I feel. I’m devastated.

I learned just before it happened, from someone in the company who simply said, “I thought you should know.”

But I didn’t truly know until that morning, when customer videos started circulating online - people filming outside stores, sharing the rumors, capturing the final day in real time. And then I learned something else that has been incredibly difficult to bear: employees were let go with no notice, and no severance. It’s just so wrong.

This isn’t the Sprinkles I knew.

A few months ago, we hosted our Sprinkles 20-year reunion. Bakers, managers, drivers, and cupcake associates from around the country came together to share memories of the early years - the late nights, the adrenaline, the laughter. The culture we built during my husband’s and my tenure was something special. We cared deeply. We tried to do things the right way.

Since that morning, I’ve been trying to understand how something that was once so alive could be gone in a single day. And everywhere I look online, it’s a Sprinkles memorial - thousands of tributes set to soulful music. People sharing their baby’s first Sprinkles. Message boxes. Proposals. Weddings. Birthdays. Dog parties. Gender reveals. And, disbelief: customers banging on locked bakery doors, staring at the last cupcakes sitting inside ATMs that are no longer operational - like a cruel prank.

And the messages… “The end of an era.” “Thank you for the memories.” “I’m not okay.” “How can I survive without red velvet?”

There were messages about cupcakes being a comfort after a miscarriage. A celebration after chemo. A prison full of men going quiet as they took their first bites of a Sprinkles cupcake.

A customer in Arizona told me that for seven years - no exceptions - he and his wife drove nearly two hours every single Friday to the Scottsdale store because it had become their tradition. He asked if there was any way he could buy the round, lit-up Sprinkles sign to hang in their home as a memory.

Another customer wrote: “Heartbroken doesn’t seem to cut it,” and shared a story of accidentally entering the wrong house number for a delivery and going on a mission to retrieve the lost cupcakes: the woman who answered the door didn’t speak English, a translator had to get involved… but the cupcakes were ultimately recovered “like priceless artifacts.”

You don’t get a reaction like this unless something mattered.
A brand doesn’t become a touchstone in people’s lives by accident.
I don’t know what happens next — but I do know Sprinkles touched a lot of hearts.

I founded Sprinkles in 2005, with a KitchenAid mixer and a dream to reinvent the cupcake. I was obsessed with every detail - the swirl, the dot, the slant of the cupcake display, the feeling you got when you walked into the store. It was love at first bite for so many, and we became known for lines out the door. Over eight years, my husband and I built a profitable business with legions of fans, scaled to ten locations across the country, and invented the Cupcake ATM.

But running a national retail business is grueling. As first-time founders, my husband and I had grown the business as far as we thought we could. We wanted leadership with deeper operational expertise and industry connections to take it into its next stage of growth. I wanted more time with my young family. And so, in 2012, we made the decision to sell.

On paper, that sounds simple. Emotionally, it wasn’t.

I’ve been very open about how unexpectedly difficult that sale was for me - the disentangling, the unmooring, the surreal feeling of watching your creation take turns you know are wrong, and being powerless to stop it. I wrote about those feelings in my book, Sweet Success. I’ve spoken about them on podcasts and on stages. I wrote an article for Inc. Magazine about it last year.

It’s been 13 years. I have built other businesses, invested in and mentored other new founders, written books, and raised my family. And still, people come to me for Sprinkles answers. Over the years it’s been questions like: Why did you discontinue chocolate marshmallow? Can you help me with this order? This week it was: Why are you closing? Will someone buy it? Will it come back in some form?

I wish I had answers. I don’t.

It’s not my company anymore and I’m mourning the loss alongside so many of you.

There are so many lessons in this ending and there is so much more I want to say. But for now, I just want to say thank you. Thank you to those of you who shared in the Sprinkles love. Thank you to those of you who shared a memory, a photo, and a kind word. It means more than you know.

I’m walking into 2026 with a heavy heart - and with gratitude. Because you don’t get to build a meaningful life, or a meaningful business, without living through the hard chapters. If I’m going to talk about resilience and reinvention, I have to live it too. So I’ll keep showing up - creating, building, leading, and telling the truth about what the entrepreneurial experience really is, even when it hurts.

XO,

candace