For those people who live in strange and far away places fairy-floss is also called cotton candy. For people who live even further away, this is a method of preparing sugar such that you get a fluffy, sticky mess that can be wound around a stick It's fun to see it made at fairs and other shows. Usually it's pink. Sometimes they take it off the stick and package it in a bag. It lasts longer this way, but somehow tastes less nice.
Anyway...
The last time I was in Sydney, pjf and I took an evening walk out to get some dinner. As we walked we saw many people carrying identical boxes and thought there must be a damn good pizza place around.
As we walked further we saw a huge crowd of people at the entrance of some innocuous looking building. I thought it was a bit early for people to be going clubbing, but where else do you have such queues?
As we walked even close we realised it wasn't a pizza place, and it wasn't a nightclub.
It was a donut shop.
One of many in the area.
But this one sold Crispy Creme donuts.
What's so special about Crispy Creme donuts that people would wait up to 30 minutes in at queue (which was at least 20 people long during all opening hours)? We didn't know, so we had to try them. No chance that night though. When we got back from dinner they were turning people away so they could close on time!
As a special treat to our students and a legitimate reason for running off during morning tea, I ran back down the Crispy Creme and joined the 21 person long queue. After waiting for 15 minutes (we were lucky apparently they'd just gotten more staff) I got to buy a dozen "original glaze" donuts for about $12.
All the time I was in a queue I could here people on their mobile phones saying "I'm getting 3 boxes, right? Should I get a 4th one just in case?" or "I'm just about in, so it's a box for you and me, should I get a second one and sell it off at the office?". A box contains 12 donuts...
So what's an original glaze crispy creme donut like? It's like fairy-floss turned into a donut. It's quite nice if you've got a big sweet tooth...
Not at all good for your teeth or figure of course.
Apparently you can buy a franchise for about $2 million AU. Maybe it's more. We figured that if you could put it in an equally popular place (as the one in Sydney) and if people didn't finally get sick of it or stop coming due to tooth rot, you'd probably pay that and all other expenses off in about 2.5 years and after that all the rest of the money was yours. I don't remember the exact calculations.
I wonder if we're in the wrong business.
fairy-floss is also called cotton candy
In the UK it's called "candy floss".
