The Sweet Shoppe Festival

I need to get away from my crazy life and drown in sweets so as an after thought, I paid $ 12 to get into The Sweet Shoppe Festival. Wow, what a waste of money. There weren’t enough vendors to sustain the crowd and the position of the booths created crowds throughout the venue. Hopefully they’ll get their act together for next year, but for now, I’ll have to pass.

My Ratings:
Quantity: 3 — ok
Quality: 4 — yummy
Price: 2 — ok
Location: 2 — small
Parking: 3 — pay at a garage
Service: 2 — ok
My Opinion/​Story:
It was fun, lots of goodies to try but not much things to do. We only stayed for an hour which was enough to satisfy our sweet tooth. They didn’t start on time but they did offer some tiny cupcakes to make up for their late start.
Most memorable delights — Sweet Tamales!!! YUMMY!

Very, very disappointed =(
Came here on an empty stomach. BIG MISTAKE. The long line to get in was ridiculous. Makes me wonder if they did that to hype up the place like clubs do. We purchased tickets ahead of time and bought the package that included a goody-​bag for $ 25. NOT WORTH IT even though we were given tickets for the next day– we knew we weren’t going. The goody-​bag was a Whole Foods recycled bag filled with a coupon book/​directory, business cards/​flyers, one vanilla caramel sample and three chocolate samples. THAT’S IT.
The event had a couple good vendors. Not much to pick from as far as samples. It was a small venue, half of the room was occupied by vendors and their samples of cakes, chocolates, organic crème brûlée, tamales and cookies. The other half set up with a bar/​lounge area and some crafts/​jewelry for sale section.
We were pretty much done in about 15 minutes and left to get some lunch. We came back with intentions of going for another round for dessert, but there wasn’t really anything worth having seconds of other then the organic crème brûlée. So we used the restroom and headed back for some Humphry Slocombe ice cream in the city.
I think I’ll pass on any future Sweet Shoppe Festivals, at least for a couple of years, if that.

I would be most upset if the tickets aren’t free. I can’t imagine anyone paying $ 12 for the tickets to this event. Sweet Shoppe has the potential to be great but a lot of things went wrong.
— The event is hard to find. There are signs advertising the event throughout Jack London Square but nothing really tells you where to go.
— Small venue but is still half empty.
— Only about 20 food vendors there. You could finish sampling everything in 30 minutes at most.
— Half the place is filled with random art and craft merchants not related to food/​dessert/​sweets.
I sampled everything there but none of the food vendors were impressive. Some of the guest speakers seem interesting but there just weren’t enough stuff to do to keep you entertained in between the presentations. This event is not worth paying $ 12 for. In fact, I probably won’t come here again even if it is free. Take your family to Fenton for ice-​cream instead! It would be a much more satisfying experience I promise.

SWEET SHOPPE FESTIVAL
It’s all about the sweets! This nice, sunny Saturday, Jacklynn & I went to The Sweet Shoppe event in Jack London Square, a celebration of all that is sweet. Courtesy of complimentary Unilocal! tickets, we set off to satisfy our sweet tooths ^)^ The two-​day event celebrates regional pastry chefs, confectioners, cupcake fairies, local restaurants, specialty vendors, cheese makers, vintners and more. Bay’s new handmade specialties, and old time favorites, ranging from cookie purveyors, chocolatiers, and ice cream professionals. Samples abound! My personal favorite: the chocolate crème brûlée and rasberry chocolates from Coco Tutti!

After finding this event on Unilocal,I was excited to take my mom for Mother’s Day (since we ALL love sweets). Thank god, for getting free tickets via Unilocal.I can’t believe that some people paid $ 12 to get into this event… it was pretty much a dud. We showed up about 15 mins after it started and there was a huge line… turns out they hadn’t even opened yet. There was no one outside to direct people or to let them know the event wasn’t open yet. Finally, they opened. There were about 15 local vendors inside giving small free samples of their sweets. I’d say about 75% of the vendors were selling chocolate bars and truffles. There were 3 or so vendors who had cupcakes, but they all had very similar flavors… and nothing to set themselves apart from each other. The best sweet of the event was the crème brûlée vendor. Prices for buying the sweets from the vendors were alright, but you’d think that after you paid $ 12 to get in and had a tiny bit of their food they would at least give you a small discount. This event really needs a lot of work, if they are going to do it again. They should try to balance the vendors they have so there is a greater variety of sweets… and they should allow people in for free. Will I go back to this? No thanks!