By Peter Sackett

"The more you think about what we're doing to the Earth, the better it feels to find good uses for things that aren't completely new," says Jody Hall, owner and founder of Seattle-based bakery, Cupcake Royale.

In 2003, when Hall and her colleagues launched their cupcake baking operation, the kitsch appeal of the pedestrian dessert had already gained a foothold in New York City but, to her knowledge, nowhere else.

"Cupcakes were huge there," Hall recalls. "Bakeries were making them in a way that hadn't been popular in the United States for 30 or 40 years-from scratch, using only real ingredients, not mixes, and not with tons of shortening and oil. I was really intrigued. I hadn't seen anyone doing that in Seattle; as far as I know, we were the first folks outside of New York to open a bakery dedicated to cupcakes.

In addition to the appeal of wholesome ingredients, Hall also recognized the marketing potential of retro novelty; no one can peel a pleated cupcake wrapper without recalling grade school birthday celebrations when lessons were halted, with teacher's blessing, to eat sweets delivered by somebody's mother. But for Hall, rekindling fond memories wasn't enough to build a successful operation. A firm believer in sustainability, she resolved to buy equipment and almost every stick of the furniture for their first location in Madrona from the University of Washington Surplus Store.

"Part of that decision was budget-driven," Hall says, "but we wanted to reuse equipment instead of just buying everything new. There are a lot of used goods available at the surplus store, great, durable, old stuff. So we asked ourselves "Why buy new and contribute to waste and consumption? Why should we shop at Ikea and add even more things to the product cycle?"

At Madrona, customers glance up to make their coffee selections from a salvaged chalkboard menu, and per down through the glass of recycled display cases to point their chosen sweets offered in glossy brown and a range of pastel pink, purple and yellow. Clutching their rewards, they retreat to schoolroom tables of wood and Formica bearing the seasoned patina of heavy use. A menagerie of hard, sturdy chairs in institutionally familiar shapes and textures surround them. Some bear the inscrutable, furtive etchings of students from decades earlier: a blonde wood library chair: "I love fRANK".  A straight-backed office bench: "Now your history". Other pieces are virtually pristine.

With music playing and the air thick with espresso and sugar vapors, this is study hall as it should be. Since opening her first store, Hall has added three more stores, in West Seattle, Capitol Hill and Ballard, selling thousands of desserts each week. Her furniture-buying practice continues. "We're back at the surplus store looking for cool shelving units to display tee-shirts and things like that," Hall says. The boss sits in the office in the back amid bags of flour and piles of special orders. Concealed beneath and behind them, and working as efficiently as they did decades earlier, are Steelcase desks, metal lab tables and a cubbyhole organizer that once sorted UW Faculty mail.

"It's nice to use pieces that have history." Hall says.

Photo credit: Chris Blakeley/CreativeCommons