On a Friday afternoon in front of the Boston Public Library, Emerson College alumna Sarah McTeague stood outside of the Kickass Cupcakes truck after purchasing a cupcake.
“And Linus, you get some, too,” McTeague said, calling to her dog.
McTeague gestured to the Kickass Cupcakes truck and said, “I look for this truck.”
Kickass Cupcakes opened a Somerville store in Davis Square in 2007 and in the past year has expanded their business to sells cupcakes off a food truck.
The truck has run seven days a week at five different stops in Boston and Cambridge, said owner and pastry chef Sara Ross.
Ross said she was inspired to open a mobile cupcake bakery because of the sheer lack of them in the Boston area.
The motivation to open her own bakery came when she was walking down Newbury Street and noticed the opening of the retail store Johnny Cupcakes.
She assumed it would be a cupcake bakery and felt disappointed someone had beaten her to the idea, she said. But upon entering the store, she found out it was not the case.
“That was kind of the kick in the pants,” Ross said. “I was thinking – I would like to be the first one.”
The name of the bakery comes from the reaction of its customers, Ross said.
“That’s what you say when you take a bite of our cupcakes,” she said.
Ross said Kickass Cupcakes are all natural and they use top-shelf ingredients, lots of butter, no shortening and no oils.
“Sometimes the staff will come up with new ideas or sometimes I’m inspired by things I see, like if I go out to dinner and on the menu they have bananas foster – well that’d be a great idea for a cupcake,” Ross said. “I like to play with turning classic desserts into cupcakes.”
Ross said she also experiments with cupcakes containing alcohol, such as “The Sammy,” which is a chocolate cupcake with a beer ganache center, topped with Sam Adams Cream Stout frosting and caramel.
“I like to play with alcohol. Once a month we have a Happy Hour,” she said. “I take three cocktails and make cupcakes based off the cocktails. That’s really fun.”
Kickass Cupcakes also has a Celebrity Series of cupcakes, including the “Steven Tyler Screamin’ Demon,” which is a chocolate cupcake with a chocolate-chili infused ganache center, chocolate chili icing and a hot Thai chili candy garnish.
“I look at celebrities and try to interpret that into a cupcake,” Ross said.
Her next addition to the Celebrity Series will be a Mark Wahlberg–inspired cupcake, she said.
Despite the interesting flavors at her shop, Ross said her favorite is vanilla with chocolate icing.
Kickass Cupcakes has a staff of nearly 20 bakers and workers who all received some experience working on the cupcakes, whether professionally trained or not, Ross said.
“We also have probably the most well educated staff, with alums from Harvard, BU, Stanford, Emerson and various art and design schools,” she said. “My staff is a kickass team.”
Kickass Cupcakes delivers to various places across New England, including Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, Ross said.
It has also received recognition from the Food Network.
But Kickass Cupcakes has gotten some negative feedback on the Yelp, while its Dairy Bar, which serves ice cream, has received positive reviews.
Ross said Yelp sent them logo stickers, which read “People Love Us on Yelp,” because of the Dairy Bar feedback.
She then took the logo sign and changed it to read “People HATE Us on Yelp” and hung it in the front window of the shop, she said.
Holly Nicely, a Kickass Cupcakes’ truck driver and Boston University alumna said cupcakes make the world brighter.
“I think [Kickass Cupcakes] has flavors that no other bakery has and it keeps coming up with new ones that are really innovative and really delicious,” Nicely said. “And they’re so well made.”
Nicely said the food truck is a booming business.
“We get a really wide variety [of customers],” she said. “We definitely get a lot of business people, especially in this area, coming home from work . . . a lot of parents with kids . . . lots of people doing shopping.”
The Belfort family, from Venezuela, stopped by the Kickass Cupcakes truck during their tour of Boston.
Alan Belfort said he really liked his Cinnamon Chai Pecan Sticky cupcake.
“There are a great variety of cupcakes and that is very good and they are very tasty,” Daniel Belfort said. “There are a lot of ingredients and a lot of flavors in it and I think, overall, it’s very good.”
Ross said her bakery will always be just cupcakes.
“Cupcakes bring joy,” Ross said. “They make people happy.”
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