Is Sugar Sweet Sunshine NYC's Best Cupcake?
There are a lot of things I don’t miss about living on the Lower East Side, #1 being watching ex-frat boys puke outside of Fat Baby on Saturday nights. Or maybe it’s paying penthouse prices for an ex-tenement apartment… or seeing some kind of dead animal in the street at least once a day. But I digress! The one thing I definitely miss, though, is the food. Specifically, the bakery Sugar Sweet Sunshine.
It’s no secret that Manhattanites love them some cupcakes, and everyone has an argument of why one is better than the other. Sugar Sweet, owned by two sweet and enthusiastic ex-Magnolia ladies, is probably not for you if you are into the Crumbs-style “eat all of your daily intake of calories in one bite and then feel kind of like you might throw up,” because it keeps it simple. The cupcakes are normal in size as is the icing to cake ratio, but every bite explodes with perfected flavor–whether it’s pumpkin cake with cream cheese ice cream, red velvet cake with chocolate almond buttercream, or vanilla with vanilla buttercream– and they’re only $1.50. (Yes, that means you can eat two.) And! Milk, coffee, teas and more are available alongside for right around $1.50 as well.
Sunshine also offers fresh-baked cookies for $.50, a Banana Pudding that I dream of for $4, coffee cake for $3, cakes and pies at $3-$4 and even little baby cheesecakes for $1.50. But to put the icing on the cupcake (get it!), it’s actually a spot you’d like to hang out in. With friends or by yourself – it’s a warm, cozy little spot with worn-in chairs, tables, and usually leftover reading material from guests before you, and open early and late in case a cookie dipped in milk is your idea of a wild Friday night.
Sugar Sweet Sunshine
126 Rivington Street (at Essex) [Lower East Side]
