A new Fort Mill dessert shop is almost ready to open in a fast growing part of town
A growing Fort Mill business hub is about to get a little sweeter.
A Smallcakes Cupcakery and Creamery is expected to open by mid-February at 1500 Fort Mill Parkway. The 1,200-square-foot store will set up space near the Dobys Bridge and Holbrook roads intersection in the same shopping center as Blue Smokehouse & Bar, a 7-Eleven, and dentist offices.
“We do plan on opening next month,” said owner Kevin Barnes. “We are hiring. We just hired one manager and two bakers.”
The new store may seem familiar for some. There are Smallcakes locations across the North Carolina line in Ballantyne, Steele Creek and the university area of Charlotte. There are five South Carolina locations, including two in Columbia.
Smallcakes shops bake and frost up to 18 signature flavors each morning. They also have a range of ice creams infused with cupcakes. The Fort Mill site will have a dozen signature flavors and another one or two specialty flavors daily. Barnes said there are more than 250 proprietor flavor cupcakes and ice creams among hundreds of company locations.
“It’s made fresh daily,” he said. “We never sell leftover cupcakes. It’s going to be a pretty good size cupcake.”
While some bakeries or dessert stops may have more limited hours, the new Fort Mill store won’t. It will be open 11 a.m.-7 p.m. weekdays, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.
“If you want to stop by after work, you can,” Barnes said.
The new business is part passion and part neighborhood. For one, Barnes likes cupcakes.
“I wanted cupcakes and I didn’t want to drive 10 minutes away to get any,” he said.
The new store will be a minute from his home in the Massey subdivision, he said. Massey is one of many large subdivisions that’s led to high residential growth in Fort Mill for more than a decade. The full Massey build-out plans put it at more than 1,000 homes. It’s the same for nearby Waterside at the Catawba. Just down Fort Mill Parkway the Elizabeth subdivision is in clearing. Approved plans there allow for more than 2,600 homes and apartments.
The growth brings noticeable business and other growth. Catawba Ridge High School, Forest Creek Middle School and River Trail Elementary School all have been or are being built in the small stretch of parkway between Massey and Elizabeth. The shopping center where Smallcakes will go is still growing and there’s land across the parkway for a future Harris Teeter.
