I consider myself to be one of those Yelp users who frequents this site for helpful suggestions on where to find the best local restaurants and bakeries. Not often - in fact, not once - have I left a review after my dining experience, but after seeing the overwhelming number of positive reviews posted here for The Queen's Cups I find that I have to throw my two-cents in the hat. Hopefully someone will read it and save themselves the time and money.
I've had TQC products several times now, each time worse than the last. While I can't speak to her additional offerings of cookies, brownies, etc., I have tried a wide variety of cupcakes, the product on which the owner Renee King made her name.
They are by far the worst cupcakes I've ever had, and it's not even close.
To start, the chocolate cake TQC uses as the base for at least half their cupcakes is entirely flavorless. I'm talking no flavor AT ALL. On the flip side, the vanilla cake does taste like vanilla, it's just drier than the Sahara desert. The red velvet is no better than the chocolate, and the RV cupcake is only partially saved by the cream cheese frosting on top, which is of a nice consistency (not too heavy) and flavor. The carrot cake cupcake, however, is a different story. The cake itself is springy and lacks substance. There were no nuts, no raisins, no carrot. I was distraught. I felt like I had been deceived by a spice cupcake in carrot's clothing, which it had stolen on its way out of a boxed mix.
I tried the Blueberry Lemonade cupcake, and while the blueberries were fresh with a bit of tart flavor to them, the vanilla in the cake was overpowering and immediately overshadowed the namesake of this cupcake: blueberry. The lemon frosting on top carried no flavor, just sweetness. I threw most of this cupcake away.
The Cookies N' Creme cupcake should be avoided at all costs. The mound of Oreo buttercreme on top of the flavorless chocolate cupcake, combined with the pudding piped inside, makes your teeth feel like they're rotting out of your mouth while your tongue languishes helplessly under all the sugar. Speaking of frosting, there's no rhyme or reason to frosting distribution on these cupcakes. Sometimes it's a shameful dollop on an already-undersized cupcake, and then sometimes it's a mountain of overly sweet frosting that suffocates the cupcake beneath it. Beware the cupcakes with "cannoli" frosting - it's scooped on top, shaped to resemble an upside down bucket and guaranteed to make your gag reflex do a double-take. I don't know what that frosting flavor is but it's not cannoli.
The customer service at TQC is crap. You're not greeted when you walk in, nor are you offered any help without first having to get someone's attention. The store space is small, and the space behind the counter even smaller. It should not be the customer's responsibility to flag down help when staff members behind the counter are standing less than 5 feet away and having conversations with each other. The final time I was there it could not have been more painfully obvious that the young girl behind the counter considered me a nuisance. As I asked her questions about some of the "flavors," she either couldn't answer or trailed off out of annoyance before looking over my shoulder at the wall. On second thought, it may have been embarrassment since every "new flavor" I asked about was almost exactly the same as the flavor she had just described.
As a business that touts their creativity, originality and seemingly endless array of flavors all over Facebook, Instagram and their own website, I find it deceptive that so many of these "flavors" are practically duplicates of other flavors. Take for instance the Taco Tuesday cupcake. What makes a Taco Tuesday cupcake you might ask? Well, it's just your basic flavorless chocolate cake, cream filling, and buttercream. But why is it called "Taco Tuesday" then? Because TQC made the buttercream green and red and cracked a golden Oreo in half on top to make it look like an open taco. There is nothing Mexican or "taco" about this cupcake. How about a play on Mexican hot chocolate? Or a chocolate and chili combo? Recycling flavors and giving them a different name doesn't make you original or a flavor connoisseur, it makes you lazy.
What it comes down to is that The Queen's Cups is all smoke and mirrors. The cupcakes LOOK appetizing online, where Renee inundates every social media platform with photos of the colorful products and the bakery itself. The aesthetic is heavily influenced by Pinterest, and the atmosphere is one that screams, "Take a picture for Instagram!" to the gaggle of girls who find their way inside to sit on the faux fur chairs. But you can't hide bad product. At most I'll say TQC knows how to brand, I'll give them that. But they should take that sole skill elsewhere and leave the baking industry alone. read more