After five years of operation, SWIRL Dessert Bar , a made-to-order cupcake shop in Charlotte, will reduce availability to just one day a week as it plans to shut down its Oakhurst location.
The decision comes after SWIRL’s Oakhurst location had not been “breaking even for a long time.” Maria Kremer said she and SWIRL CEO Curtis Stone realized “if we didn’t shut down Oakhurst ASAP, then you know, we were going to lose both of the stores.”
Kremer credits the closing to a decline in sales and effectiveness of social media efforts at its Oakhurst store, which relied on revenues from its South End location to break even.
“With sales at Oakhurst tanking, we’ve made the hard decision to shut down that store. We’re actively looking for another tenant to take over our lease. In the meantime, our Oakhurst store will only be open on Saturdays,” SWIRL Owner Maria Kremer told CharlotteFive.
The South End store will now be open seven days a week.
SWIRL’s South End location was opened in March 2023, with an ultimate goal of opening more locations.
“We opened our second location in South End in March of 2023 and right around that time we saw Oakhurst beginning to decline, and the economy beginning to decline. We saw businesses like Pepperbox , Wentworth and Fenn , Early Girl Eatery, a bunch of other, small businesses around not being able to make it and shutting down,” Kremer said.
With its growing customer base in South End, Kremer noted the SWIRL team believes its South End store has a lot more room to grow as a company. “There’s a lot of developments happening in LoSo and the support that we see from South End is a lot more encouraging than what we ever saw from Oakhurst,” Kremer said.
At its South End location, expect double the toppings bar, double the lobby space, outside seating and outside music as the space itself “is a lot more geared towards the customer,” Kremer said.
SWIRL’s menu features sweet treats including cake bites, cupcakes, frosted cookies and ice cream, cupcakes in flavors such as Cookies n’ Cream, Strawberry, Cookie Butter or even just plain Vanilla. If you’re not too much of a cupcake lover, opt for another one of SWIRL’s desserts like its Chocolate Chunk Cookie, a Rainbow Frosted Milkshake or a Churro Cake Bite.
Challenges in Foot Traffic and Social Media
Kremer also contributed to some of SWIRL’s challenges leading to its closure to the decline in consumer spending on non-essentials. She observes patrons continuing to dine at restaurants but cutting back on extras like ice cream.
“I still walk past and see a bunch of people on patios and stuff. You know, you have to eat but you don’t have to get ice cream afterwards. And so we’ve seen the effects of that for sure,” Kremer said.
Even on its social media, the dessert bar – despite having 24,000 Instagram followers and improving social media content quality – has seen a drop in engagement, according to Kremer.
“The first three years that we were open, we could get an influencer (to) come out, and then see a giant peak in our sales. And that was something we really, really utilized as a small business. And now that we’ve seen that not work, it’s kind of grasping at straws and relying a lot on our foot traffic and word of mouth, and that takes us a lot farther in South End than it does in a little neighborhood like Oakhurst,” Kremer said.
As SWIRL shuts down its Oakhurst store, which Maria said is “kind of like our cancer right now,” and goes to operate out of South End, she said “we’re hoping that the community will bounce back and support us and drive from Oakhurst to come see us.”
“So we’re optimistic that is looking up we really figure out after cutting off Oakhurst that SWIRL, in general, has an ability to kind of flatline for a little bit, get its head in the water and then, and then come up from this continue to grow and open more stores and eventually franchising is our end goal. But right now, we are very far from that,” Kremer said.
Location: 2822 South Blvd B, Charlotte, NC 28209
Location: 1640 Oakhurst Commons Dr #103, Charlotte, NC 28205 (open on Saturdays for now)
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Cuisine: Desserts, cupcakes, cookies, ice cream and cake bites
Instagram: @swirlclt
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