Sweet Ride Drives Success of Bryn Mawr Cupcake Shop

Donn Seikowitz has been followed before. More than once, actually. With the sort of car he drives, even in a town like Bryn Mawr, it happens. The thing just attracts attention.

“I’ve had people tail me back to the store,” the Lancaster Avenue business owner admitted last week. “They saw the car, figured I was heading back that way, and wanted to see what it was all about.”

Can I help you with something? you can imagine Seikowitz asking a van of strange men, key in hand, straining to keep his voice from quavering.

Cupcakes, they’ll say. We’d like some cupcakes.

They'd have come to the right place. 

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When Seikowitz opened *ndulge cupcake boutique in State College in 2010, the veteran of 25 years in the advertising business knew marketing his new project would be a challenge.

“I knew, as an advertising practitioner, that it’s very hard to get a positive return on investment on advertising expenditures when you’re talking about a business with an average sale of $6,” he said.

So he would have to think outside the box. Seikowitz wanted something that wouldn’t just give his new business visibility, but arrest attention. Demand it, even.

“I wanted something that people would take pictures of, talk about. Something that would be fun,” he said.

So he bought a car. A Mini Cooper, to be precise, and festooned it with a smattering of *ndulge decals and logos before, as the veritable cherry-on-top, he had an enormous cupcake fastened to the roof. 

The sweet new ride was an immediate hit. It became, its owner said, a "rolling billboard" for the bakery.

“A Mini Cooper has its own cache. And if you stick a 3-foot tall cupcake on top of it...it turns heads,” he explained.

When Seikowitz closed his State College location to bring *ndulge to Bryn Mawr in March, then Manayunk two months later, he brought the distinctive Mini with him. It’s continued to be a central part of the cupcake shop.

Seikowitz has made deliveries in the car, sold pastries out of its trunk at street festivals, and plans to make the rounds at area colleges in the fall to hand out free samples during move-in day and orientation.

“The Mini is part and parcel to our brand,” Seikowitz smiled from a window seat in his 1039 W. Lancaster Avenue café, looking fondly at the distinctive automobile parked out front.

Sometimes, after all, it’s nice to be followed.