Magnolia Bakery

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The Magnolia Bakery

Magnolia Bakery is a bakery opened in 1996 at 401 Bleecker Street, on the corner of West 11th Street in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. An uptown shop opened at 200 Columbus Avenue, on the corner of West 69th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in January of 2008. The bakery is known for its famous dessert treats, including its cupcakes and old-fashioned Depression era icebox cakes. It stays open unusually late for a bakery, and typically there is a line to get in as late as 11:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. Magnolia limits cupcake purchases to 12 per customer because of their popularity.[1]

Magnolia bakery opened in July of 1996 with Allysa Torey and Jennifer Appel as co-owners. They had three employees: Kathryn McCann (who was originally hired to be the bread baker), William (who washed dishes) and Avi ( barista/counter guy). They offered four kinds of bread along with both cinnamon rolls and whole wheat maple walnut rolls during the first week of operation. Making bread proved to be impractical due to time and space constraints. Southern-raised Kathryn stayed on, however, to bake cakes and pastries, helping Allysa with icing cakes and testing recipes with her late at night. The cupcakes were Allysa's brainchild that resulted because when they would make 6" coconut cakes (instead of the usual 9"), there was extra batter going to waste. Thus, the cupcakes were born in early fall of 1996. They were originally only vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream icing tinted pink...the same as the icing that was on the nicknamed "Barbie Cake" of the time. They were baked in the afternoons and iced at night when the bakery was officially closed. There would be many people (mostly guys heading to Christopher Street) walking by late at night and when Allysa would tell them the bakery was closed, they would beg for just a cupcake. She obliged. Thus the craze began.

Magnolia Bakery was originally envisioned as just a nice little neighborhood bakery that would be open from about 8am-6pm. That plan changed quickly due to demand. The first summer the bakery was open, its air conditioner wasn't working and the 100 degree kitchen was too hot for many first-time visitors.

The bakery is credited with starting a 1990s "cupcake craze".[2]

The Magnolia Bakery's owner, Allysa Torey, along with former co-owner Jennifer Appel, published a book in 1999 entitled The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook: Old-Fashioned Recipes from New York's Sweetest Bakery.[3]

In 2000, co-owner Jennifer Appel parted ways with Torey and opened Buttercup Bake Shop in the Midtown East section of Manhattan. Allysa Torey (otherwise known by her given name Lisa Salvatore) sold The Magnolia Bakery to a new owner as of January 1st, 2007. She has agreed to stay on as a consultant for an unspecified amount of time.

On July 11, 2007, the bakery was shut down by the New York Department of Health for not having enough sinks,[4] the bakery was also cited for a missing door handle, a missing light cover, and several mouse droppings and fruit flies in its garbage area. The bakery reopened within a week.[5]

In 2008, Magnolia Bakery opened a second store. It's located at 200 Columbus Avenue at 69th Street.

[edit] Appearances in popular culture

The exterior of the bakery downtown, as well as its cupcakes, were featured in Lazy Sunday, a Saturday Night Live digital short broadcast in December 2005. The bakery was also featured on Sex and the City, in the film Prime, in which one of the characters throws Magnolia pies at his ex-girlfriends, and in The Devil Wears Prada, in which the character Andy says at one point that she needs to get to the bakery to pick something up for her boyfriend.[6]

Japanese megastar Ayumi Hamasaki visited Magnolia Bakery during the recording of her (miss)understood album. The pictures were later published in Hamasaki's famous Deji Deji Diary that is published by ViVi Magazine in each of their issue.^[1]
Korean singer turned actress Yoon Eun Hye visited the bakery during her "She's O'live" travel special to New York City. Segments of her visit were featured in the show.