How Sweet It Is

Sugar Sweet Sunshine

Two beat-up wooden benches are stationed in front of five glass doors. One of the doors has a red outline of a heart which reads, “Sugar Sweet Sunshine.”  Inside, the wooden floor and green recliner, with its torn fabric on the arm rests, makes you feel as if you are walking into someone’s living room rather than a bakery. Sunday’s edition of The New York Post sits on a white rusty wooden table in front of an orange bench chair for the next customer to read. A young Asian woman, stands in front an old Caucasian woman wearing glasses as they both wait in line craning their necks to see which cupcake in the glass counter they want to purchase. “$1.50 please,” says one of the friendly employees as Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” plays in the background.  $1.50 sure seems like a reasonable price for a cupcake these days given the fact that other bakeries are charging nearly $3 but for this five year old bakery, prices have remained stagnant.

“We were the recession before the recession,” said Debbie Weiner, co-owner of Sugar Sweet Sunshine.

My writing strategy was to use a descriptive lede because I wanted the reader to see Sugar Sweet Sunshine through my eyes. Michael Jackson’s song title “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” provided an ironic twist as a line of people were waiting to be served at the time. Then, I wanted to bring my audience back to the issue at hand which is how a small business is approaching and dealing with the recession.