If you’ve ever driven down University Boulevard towards Phillips Highway, chances are pretty good that you may have noticed the big cupcake-shaped building just past the Memorial Hospital area. That building is family-owned Short & Sweet, one of our new favorite cupcake places. If you’re like us, you’ve driven past Short & Sweet dozens of times and never stopped by. If that’s the case, you are missing out on some of the best cupcakes in town!
Short & Sweet
In addition to offering tasty treats out of their giant cupcake during the week, the owners of Short & Sweet stay busy on the weekends selling their awesome mini cupcakes at farmers markets all over the area. So chances are you may have spotted them at one of your favorite farmers markets as well. We first ran into them at the Riverside Arts Market. The couple running the booth were really friendly and helpful. They let us try one of their Red Velvet mini cupcakes. It was so good that we ended up getting a dozen more assorted mini cupcakes ($10 for a dozen), along with some S’mores Trailer Trash Cookies. These are normally $4, but we got an order for only $2 with our cupcake purchase. They also make other flavors of Trailer Trash Cookies, but they all consist basically of chocolate and other tasty toppings baked onto saltine crackers. It ends up being a great combination of salty and sweet and it’s absolutely addicting.
Short & Sweet – Smores Trailer Trash
We were so impressed with/addicted to the sweets we got from Short & Sweet at the Riverside Arts Market that we decided to pay them a visit at their giant cupcake just a few days later. The service was just as friendly at their brick and mortar (cake and frosting?) location. We were greeted at the walk-up order window by a really nice guy named Brian. He was happy to let us sample a couple of cupcakes. We absolutely love that they are so generous with letting you try before you buy. It just goes to show how tasty their cupcakes are…they know you’re going to end up buying a bunch to take home! We sampled a Key Lime mini cupcake and a Pineapple Bacon mini cupcake (more on that in a minute). The Key Lime cupcake was amazing…great lime flavor and a creamy cheesecake-type texture. We loved the Pineapple Bacon cupcake so much that we ordered a half-dozen more of them along with a half-dozen Peach cupcakes.
Short & Sweet – German Chocolate Key Lime Red Velvet and Carrot Cup Cakes
Our plan after buying our dozen mini cupcakes was to run a few errands and then head home with our little beauties. But we just couldn’t stop thinking about some of the other flavors we’d tried, so we ended up coming back by Short & Sweet one more time before heading home. This time, we went through the drive-through. Oh, did I mention that they have a drive-through? Because they totally do, and it is awesome. Drive through cupcakes? Yes, please!! It’s just a small window, with no menu sign. But feel free to ask about their flavors. They are excited about their cupcakes and are more than willing to answer questions and even let you sample a few. On our second visit of the day, we picked up another dozen assorted mini cupcakes…then finally headed home to enjoy our treats.
Short & Sweet – Bacon Pineapple and Peach Cupcakes
The Peach cupcakes are made using fresh fruit and you could smell the peach when you opened the box. It was great. Fresh peach flavor and very moist and light. The Pineapple Bacon cupcake was so, so good. The top was slightly sticky and gooey…almost like pineapple upside down cake. And the inside was filled with chunks of perfectly cooked bacon. It was a perfect marriage of sweet, fresh pineapple and savory salty bacon. This one was our favorite! We also tried the German Chocolate cupcakes and Carrot cupcakes (both delicious), and more of those amazing Key Lime cupcakes and Red Velvet cupcakes that we had tried earlier. Clearly we are now hooked on these cupcakes. And once you try them it’s easy to see why. Short & Sweet offers a ton of mini cupcake flavors and they all not only taste good, but the texture is just perfect. Sometimes gourmet cupcake places sacrifice texture and good overall cake consistency for the sake of putting together unique flavor combinations. With Short & Sweet, you get both…amazing flavor and moist, rich cake made from scratch right there in the giant cupcake building. They also sell a wide variety of other baked goods like cookies, brownies, cobblers, and buffins (their own creation…a cross between a biscuit and a muffin). On our next trip, we are excited to try out one of their Cupshakes, where they can turn pretty much anything they bake into milkshake. Sounds awesome to us!
Short & Sweet – Menu
All in all, we love Short & Sweet. The owners are super friendly people who make incredible cupcakes. Short & Sweet is truly a hidden gem and really captures the whole mission of Jacksonville Restaurant Reviews. We are huge fans and want other people to know about one of our new favorite local places. Over on our Instagram post about Short & Sweet, there was a little confusion about their hours and people just not being able to catch them at a time when they are open. They are open 9am-3pm Monday through Thursday and 8am-5pm on Fridays. On the weekends, their big cupcake building is closed, but you can find their amazing goodies at local markets such as the Beaches Green Market, the Fernandina Beach Market Place, the Old City Farmers Market, and the Riverside Arts Market. They also cater events and deliver their baked goods locally.
So there you have it…lots of ways to get your next cupcake fix. Keep your eyes peeled for the giant cupcake next time you’re driving down University Boulevard stop by for a treat this time. And if you don’t usually find yourself on that side of town, these cupcakes are definitely worth the trip!
Call ’em! (904) 674-7799
our number is (904) 674-7799