Seven days a week, in the early morning hours鈥攔ain or shine, winter or summer鈥攃rowds line up on the sidewalk on a quiet street in New York鈥檚 SOHO neighborhood. They鈥檙e tourists and locals alike, eagerly anticipating getting their hands on a highly buzzed-about offering, and waiting up to two hours, on average, to do so. But it鈥檚 not the latest smartphone or hot concert tickets they鈥檙e lining up for. It鈥檚 the cronut.
The cronut, a croissant-doughnut hybrid pastry filled with cream and topped with glaze, is the brainchild of chef Dominique Ansel , and is sold at his flagship bakery in New York every morning until the limited supply runs out. Since its launch in May 2013, the cronut has been one of the most talked-about pastry items in history, covered in national and international media and widely posted about on social media. Time named it one of the 25 best innovations of 2013, and during that summer, people sold cronuts for up to $40 (five times their $5 retail price) on the 鈥渂lack market鈥 of Craigslist. Three years later, customers still line up around the block for the cronut, and it has inspired knockoff versions by Dunkin鈥 Donuts and bakeries around the country, such as the 鈥渄oughssant,鈥 in Chicago, Atlanta and Columbus, Ohio, and the 鈥渃ro-not鈥 in San Francisco.
Ansel鈥檚 version, however, is the trademarked original, and it鈥檚 helped him make his mark on the culinary scene, but he鈥檚 definitely not a one-hit bakery wonder. The pastry category is a competitive one, and trends such as designer cupcakes come and go. Thus, like any savvy product marketer, Ansel stays at the top of his game through innovation, creating more Instagram-able new bakery and food items and hosting one-of-a-kind culinary events. Although the chef is world renowned and recently opened a Tokyo outpost, 80% of his customers are local Manhattanites, so he has expanded his business by coupling product innovation with small business marketing acumen and concentrating on customer service and experience.
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Christine Birkner is a freelance writer in Chicago.