Published: March 4, 2010

Danielle Berman, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’10, has one of those jobs that every student envies: working as the assistant manager at Crumbs Bake Shop in Ridgewood, N.J. That’s right, when Berman heads off to work, she spends the day surrounded by buttery sweetness and the to-die-for cupcakes that we all know well from our very own Crumbs Bake Shop on 75th and Amsterdam.

When she’s not writing on cakes and bringing home cookies, Danielle is a senior at FCLC with a double major in communication and media studies and visual arts. We checked in with the lucky student to find out what it’s like working at the home of all of our guilty pleasures.

OBSERVER: What exactly is your job title?

DANIELLE BERMAN: I’m currently an assistant store manager; we have one “store manager” and then three of us are “ASMs,” so when my manager isn’t there, one of us will run the show. I tend to be the manager-on-duty in the mornings during the week and some weekend nights.

OBSERVER: How’d you get this sweet gig? (No pun intended… O.K., it’s intended)

Db: I e-mailed the Upper West Side Crumbs this past summer looking for part-time work. They said they were currently staffed, but that they’d save my info. When I saw on their Web site that a store was coming soon to Ridgewood, N.J., I e-mailed them again asking if they would be hiring. Turns out the store wouldn’t be opening for a couple of months, but I was willing to wait it out. They called me in November, I interviewed and the rest is history. I know that the job was also listed on Craigslist though, so look there if you’d like to work for Crumbs!

OBSERVER: Isn’t this the first Crumbs in New Jersey?

Db: The Ridgewood Crumbs store is actually not the first Crumbs in New Jersey! We also have locations in Hoboken and Westfield, which opened sometime last year. Our store opened up on January 18 and it’s been BUSY, BUSY, BUSY! Valentine’s Day weekend was crazy and by the end of the night on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we had completely sold out of most of our varieties. We broke a lot of hearts those nights, especially with the absence of our Red Velvet cupcakes!

OBSERVER: Is there any difference between your store and the Manhattan locations?

Db: The only difference is the size. Our store is apparently one of the largest and we can seat about 15 people; it’s becoming a local “hangout” very quickly.

OBSERVER: Are there any regulars?

Db: I’ve only noticed a few so far, and they are mainly people who work at the stores next to ours. They just love our coffee! Honestly, most of our customers are really, really nice and I love meeting new people and chatting with them. Many people ask us what our favorite cupcakes are and will buy [based on] our suggestions!

OBSERVER: And what do you recommend?

Db: I know it’s kind of blasphemous to not immediately name one of the cupcakes, but the Florentine cookies and Oreo brownies are to-die-for. As far as cupcakes go, I love the “Bryant Park” cupcake, which is a chocolate cake with chocolate mousse inside, topped with vanilla cream cheese frosting, chocolate cake crumbs, and white chocolate shavings around the edge. Mmmmm!

OBSERVER: Is there anything you’re really sick of?

Db: I’m definitely getting sick of the constant smell of the cupcakes and the fact that espresso is so readily available. Even though I love coffee and lattes, the amount of caffeine I’ve ingested in the past month or so is probably not healthy.

OBSERVER: Do you do anything hands-on, like icing cupcakes?

Db: We do not assemble the cupcakes at our stores. A bakery in Long Island City, Queens has all of our recipes and does all of the baking and decorating, shipping to us fresh every morning by 6 a.m. We do writing on cakes, though, such as the typical “Happy Birthday, Elissa!” or “Happy Anniversary!” Most of us are pretty good at it, but if I’m on the shift, everyone makes me do it. I personalized Christmas ornaments at the mall one Christmas season, so I’d like to say I have good handwriting. Doesn’t mean it’s not nerve-wracking though, especially if that cake is the only one of its kind in our store!

OBSERVER: People go nuts over cupcakes. Do you have any fun stories about crazy customers?

Db: Oh, people are crazy! One woman tried to return six cupcakes her husband bought her because she “can’t eat cholesterol or artificial coloring.” Everything in our store is high in fat (Obviously! They are huge cupcakes!) and are decorated with vibrant dyed icing, so we weren’t sure how her husband didn’t know that about her. Anyway, we can’t take returns on food; since we don’t know if the customer opened up the product and touched it, we can’t re-sell them. I was instructed by my manager to tell her she can take some other product instead if she wanted; we figured since everything is high in fat (and looks like it), she wouldn’t. She ended up taking the rest of our black and white cookies and five small cupcakes, just because it equaled the cost of the other cupcakes she bought. Crazy!

OBSERVER: What we’re all dying to know is about the perks… do you get to bring anything home?

Db: If we have anything left at the end of the night, which is rare, we can take stuff home within a reasonable amount (and no one gets carried away because I think we’re all cupcaked-out at this point). Needless to say my friends and family are very happy lately.