Saturday, 14 August 2010

• Pop Tarts World

  
  
  My, oh my, the moment has arrived: Pop Tarts, those oh-so-ridiculously-delicious-but-oh-so-terrible-for-you-in-every-possible-way breakfast pastries have had a world created for them.  It is already constructed, in the form of a 4,200 square foot building in Times Square, NYC (on the south side of 42nd Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway).  It opened this past Tuesday, according to a recent article in the New York Times.   

  If you're a New Yorker, I highly recommend stopping in for a visit - even if you avoid the chaos of opening day (I'd completely do the same), try to make it over there sometime before New Year's Day.  The lease (which includes the 6-story billboard towering over the building) is somewhere between $400 and $1,000 per square foot of land, and ends in January; when the lease ends, whether or not it should be continued (depending on how the first 6 months of business have been) will be decided.

  Plus, this place just sounds quite worthy of a visit (WHY am I stuck in the South every time something awesome happens up North?). 

  Features of the Store include (but will not be limited to):

  • The store's consistently main event will be its central cafe, which has a menu of over 30 Pop Tart-derived items.  These items include the following (get ready for this): 1) The "Fluffer-Butter," which is two fudge-flavored Pop Tarts sandwiching marshmallow spread; 2) "Sticky Cinna-Munchies," which are cinnamon rolls lathered in cream-cheese-based icing and topped with chunks of cinnamon-flavored Pop Tarts; 3) "Ants on a Log?," which are celery sticks doused in peanut-butter and topped with chunks of grape-flavored Pop Tarts (that actually sounds kind of gross, on second thoughts, but relatively creative nonetheless; and 4) "Pop Tart Sushi" (my favorite one), which are 3 different flavors of Pop Tarts rolled up in fruit roll-ups.

   

  • Additionally, visitors to the store have the opportunity to "build their own" Pop Tarts - guests start with a plain Pop Tart pastry, and request their own flavors of frosting, toppings (there will be ice-cream-store-like options such as sprinkles and shredded coconut), and drizzle (which goes on top of everything, and comes in flavors such as caramel and strawberry).  Specially-hired servers will help in Pop Tart Construction.  Yum!

   

  • There will be a light show throughout the store every hour or so, and it lasts only a few minutes.  It has been designed to mimic the creation of a Pop Tart, except that guests take the place of the pastries - first, sweeping red and white lights sweep over everyone, and guests feel as though they are being "frosted"; this is followed by bright, colorful, neon lights that flick around the room imitating "sprinkles"; after guests have been "sprinkled," a really bright, flashing light casts itself about the room in strobe-like fashion, in an effort to model aluminum foil, and guests feel as though they are being "packaged".

   

  • The "Varietizer" will be a machine available for guests to the store to use, so that guests can "varietize" their Pop Tart packs.  Using this machine, visitors can build six 2-packs of Pop Tarts for $12 (so, $1 per tart), constructing their 12-packs from any of 23 Pop Tart flavors.

   

  • One more feature will be the row of computer screens lined up along one side of the store, all connected to Poptartsworld.com, giving customers a chance to play Pop Tart video games and, of course, to view various forms of advertising for the pastries.

  There will obviously be a gift store (or multiple ones?) wherein visitors to the store can purchase any number of Pop Tarts merchandise - and even design their own Pop Tarts t-shirts.  What exactly the design options are, however, you'll have to find out and get back to me about.  I'm really curious to know.

  
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  What do you think about Pop Tarts World?  If you could design a "world" for a particular snack food, which food would you build one for?  Do you think you'll visit the Pop Tarts one?

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