The walls of the Killer Cupcakes shop are covered with photos and movie posters featuring notorious pop culture icons and for owners Symon and Nicole Wilk the motif is more than a marketing gimmick.
“This store represents who we are,” said Nicole. “If you walked into our house this is what you’d see.”
The autographed photos and custom artwork are a draw even when they aren’t open.
“When we come here in the morning we find nose marks on the window where people put their face against the glass to look inside,” said Symon.
Their “goremet” cupcake selection features such classics as Helter Skelter, Doctor Strangelove, Graham Reaper and Salted Johnny Cashew.
“We’re all about classic movies and rock and roll,” said Symon. “We have over 120 flavours of cakes and cupcakes. We use, only 100 per cent butter. We don’t use any shortening or stabilizers or any crap like that in our stuff.”
They didn’t want to be a typical cupcake shop.
“We wanted to bring something different to the cupcake world,” said Symon. “We have been around. We’ve seen stuff. We’ve lived in different places and done tons of different jobs and we just wanted to bring it all together so people could come here and have an experience.”
They opened the shop on Wilson Street four years ago but their journey together started long before that.
“Nicole was a cocktail server in Vegas for 12 years,” said Symon. “I was a DJ for a while and my family has been in the casino business my whole life. So, I have been back and forth to Vegas.”
They had known each other since 1999 but didn’t really get together until a chance meeting in Las Vegas seven years later.
“I saw her in 2006 and it was instant,” said Symon. “Within three months we were married with kids.”
Symon’s mother is an Embro with family ties in Guelph stretching back nearly a century. When the couple’s son Rhone, 11, and daughter Leighton, 10, were toddlers, Symon accepted a job with RBC and they moved to Guelph.
“I don’t have any family here or anybody because I am from the States so I was uber lonely,” said Nicole. “Symon was working full time and I had two small kids at home so I started baking.”
Simon brought some of her cupcakes to work for a company potluck and they were a hit so she started selling them out of a friend’s bagel shop on Brock Road. Not long after that in 2011 they opened their own small shop in Aberfoyle.
“It was one thing after another,” said Nicole. “We opened the shack and then there were lines. It became this cool place to go.”
A year later Symon quit his job and they officially started Killer Cupcakes.
“We overlapped the shack and the store for two years but it was just too much,” said Nicole. “Before it was just the shack and my kitchen was in Breslau. There was a lot of traveling back and forth for a number of years. So, now we have everything all in one. This will be our fourth summer here.”
Their ideas for new cupcakes are always growing and they are introducing new products such as mushroom milk and espresso.
“One of the things we are going to be offering with our coffee is 30mg of CBDs,” said Symon. “We’re just waiting on cups and lids right now. It is coming from Switzerland. It is industrial hemp. It is legal and has zero per cent THC.”
He said they aren’t trying to be the best or most successful cupcake shop in town.
“It’s not about money or anything like that,” said Symon. “It’s just about doing something different and awesome. We just want to offer something you can’t get anywhere else.”