Sugar Monkey Cupcakes

We were so excited to try Sugar Monkey and unfortunately our experience was not so great. The young woman who was working there seemed to be totally inconvenienced by our presence. She was far from pleasant and after packing up our order, she couldn’t get back to the back room fast enough. She didn’t even wait for us to leave the store. As far as the cupcakes go, they are very, very sweet and have more of a muffin consistency. We won’t be back.

This place is amazing. S’mores cupcake was unreal and my dad loved the toasted coconut lemon for Father’s Day. Amazing for real. So decadent. So sinful and the chocolate tastes like heaven. Must go!

I’ve been going to Sugar Monkey Cupcakes for a few years. The cute pink and white building is easy to spot in downtown Naperville. The staff is always energetic and happy to see customers walk in. The location is small but they do have a few tables if you would like to enjoy your cupcake right away.
Sugar Monkey will make customized cupcakes at no additional coat. I’ve placed several orders and the cupcakes have always been made perfectly! I’ve ordered Notre Dame, poker, pink rose, and New England Patriot themed cupcakes.
These cupcakes have a traditional bakery taste. I love the basic white cake or cookies & cream but I think I will stop in soon for the peanut butter cupcake!

Such a cute idea. Well decorated cupcakes. Perfect for my daughters. Unfortunately, the help is not friendly. More standoffish and waiting for you to leave. We had planned on eating there but decided to head out to the street.
I planned on buying a couple dozen for my daughter’s birthday party. I stopped in to pick up a small selection and wasn’t impressed with the taste.
I guess, we’ll order from Walmart. But, adorable store.

I like to find a place where I cans taste a moist cup cake for the price they charge. The cup cakes here are overly price. The reason I like coming here is because I spend quality time with my son Mike. He likes to try trendy places. I had a strawberry cup cake it was ok but not moist and extremely sweet. Warning if you are diabetic you can go into a sugar high lol

Don’t do it!
I have never tasted anything like what I had from SM’s
I love cupcakes and have tried lots of locations within the city and the burbs… This place is not good in any level. The flavor… The presentation all of it not good at all. Visit Miss Joans on 95^th and 59 you will be so glad you did!

Ever watched Cupcake Wars on the Food Network? This place reminds me of the show. This cute little shop is located right by the Naperville Riverwalk.
When you walk in, you’re hit by the amazing sweet aromas. I usually order their chocolate chocolate, their cookies and cream and the s’mores. The cupcakes are so moist. I always walk out happy and feeling guilty knowing I have to go to the gym later to work off the decadent sweetness I just ate. Good place to go to satisfy your sweet tooth.

I absolutely love Sugar Monkey Cupcakes! They are the best cupcakes I have ever had. The outside is cute and inviting. I haven’t had a cupcake I liked better than theirs!

I really wanted to like this place. It’s so cute on the outside, and inside as well! I chose a vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting, and a cookies and cream. When I got home, I tried the vanilla, and was taken aback. The frosting was hard and tasteless, the actual cake was hard on the outside and soggy on the inside (yuck!) and it just tasted old and gross. I have yet to try the cookies n cream, because I don’t want to be disappointed. I will try this place again, just in case it was just an off cupcake and revisit my review, but as of right now, I’m very disappointed.

While I keep waiting for this cupcake trend to end, my kids are still hanging onto it with tight white knuckles; so, here I am on occasion.
The cake is very dense. Some people like them very airy. I prefer dense cake. The cake itself isn’t overly sweet. –I assume it’s to balance out the incredibly sweet icing. I’d prefer they balance the flavors by increasing the flavor in the cake and decreasing the sugar in the icing, but I still believe it to be a fairly good cupcake.
With the very subtle cake flavor, I think the ones with filling in the middle are the way to go. –the fillings help add flavor where flavor is sometimes slightly lacking. Of those, the Mexican Hot Chocolate is one of my favs. A dense chocolate cupcake with cinnamon, filled with marshmallow cream. –Cinnamon and chocolate were made for each other. S’mores is also loved for similar reasons. Love the graham sprinkles on top and the marshmallow cream. Peanut Butter Swirl is the perfect combination of chocolate and peanut butter.
Pretty traditional flavors overall. None of the bold combinations that some cupcake shops like to branch out with. But the flavor combinations are good and they make sense. They change up their menu periodically and flavors are either every day, certain week days, or seasonal.
Cute place but only a few tiny tables in a very tiny space. No problem in the Summer or warmer months, but in inclement weather with a crowd…
Last of all, downtown Naper parking is truly annoying. I might come here more often if Sugar Monkey were located differently. My backside thanks me for sporadic trips though.
Your closest options would be the few parallel spots in front of the shop (don’t bother trying), the coveted but tiny Riverwalk Lot at Jackson/​Main or the parking garage on Chicago Ave.

Honest reviews: its okay i been here a bunch of times out of all the times i been here the best is the Oreo cookie n tje bacon one all the other ones are really plane nothing special n its also expensive n when u pay alot of money ur expecting something great not something ok

Prior to ordering 16 for a birthday party, I’d never had a bad experience with sugar monkey.
We picked them up right when they opened the door at 11. And around 3pm when we ate them they were quite stale. Maybe they baked them really early or something but I’ve typically only bought one at a time from their counter an they’ve always tasted fresh.
So I don’t recommend ordering a large batch of cupcakes.

Sugar Monkey Cupcakes was not what I thought it would be. The outside looks so sweet and inviting and the name is just precious. So these cupcakes have to be good, right? I walked in today and it was very boring. No decorations at all or cute pink colored walls to match the storefront awning.
There was one case of cupcakes which had maybe four or five different types of cupcakes… maple bacon, vanilla, s’mores, more maple bacon, chocolate and red velvet. Aside from the maple bacon, everything was pretty basic and nothing extraordinary that made me think «oh good lord, that cupcake looks so delicious, I have to have it.» I expected cupcakes galore so I was quite disappointed. It was very dimly lit and looked dingy and dirty, so it really didn’t make anything look appetizing.
Each cupcake was $ 3, or you could get 6 for $ 18 dollars and the prices just increase from there. I know that cupcake shops are usually really expensive and I’m OK with that as long as they look great and taste just as wonderful. But these did not look like they were $ 3 cupcakes. Not only were they pretty basic, but the icing looked dried out on them like they’d been in there for a few days.
It took awhile before anyone even came up to greet us. Maybe she didn’t hear us. That’s OK, whatever, it’s understandable. But then when we started asking her questions about the cupcakes she just seemed annoyed and kept giving us one word answers. Teenagers man. They kill businesses. At this point, I became annoyed and left without buying any cupcakes. Off to cookie dough creations I go.
I would like to give this place another try and actually eat one of their cupcakes so I can really give a proper review. But I’m still bitter about the way I was treated so it may be awhile before I find myself back there.

The storefront is very very cute and inviting but these cupcakes just didn’t to it for me.
I got 6 to bring home to the fam. We are some cupcake loving people here. But between the 4 of us, not even half of any of the 6 got eaten. The cake was dry, stale and flavorless. The frosting was (cannot believe I’m saying this) too sweet and sweet was the only taste there. I can’t describe the flavors because no one tasted different then the next.
The designs on the cupcakes were great, really cute. Cute is what this place did well that day. Unfortunately, my pricey cupcake monies will have to be spent at More when I can make it there.

I hate downtown Naperville. I hate the parking, the «for the most part» same old chain shops, and the all the yuppies walking around, ignorantly walking into traffic or letting their child run amuck in the shops I do actually want to go in to.
That being said, I will ignore all of those to come get a cupcake from Sugar Monkey. This is a unique cupcake shop when it comes to the cupcakes themselves. The cake is heavier than I’ve had, the frosting is delicious but different. I’ve never had an issue with a cupcake tasting old or stale, which is nice. $ 3 a cupcake may sound a bit pricey, but I believe I’m paying for quality. It’s definitely a nice treat from time to time.
My boyfriend is a big fan of the maple bacon cupcake, while I prefer to try something different each time. Today I got a chocolate peanut butter cupcake, and it was extremely sweet and delicious.
Tips for other downtown hating patrons: Go midweek, during the day. After the lunch rush and before the after school/​work traffic begins.

Sugar Monkey Cupcakes may win the award for cutest cupcake name ever. A coworker had Sugar Monkey make some adorable Minion (Despicable Me) cupcakes for a birthday so the shop was brought to my attention. These cupcakes were decorated so friggin cute and lucky me! She brought one in for the self proclaimed cupcake aficionado to try.
The cake of the cupcake was beyond moist. I didn’t find it to have much flavor in the yellow cake but the center of the cupcake had ooey, gooey caramel which definitely added to the overall flavor. The frosting was amazing! I love super rich, dense frosting… non of that airy stuff for me. And this frosting hit the bill. So creamy and chocolatey, yum! The cupcake as a whole went together really well and tasted delicious in my belly. I’m going to highly recommend the Salted Caramel Butterscotch: Vanilla cake, caramel filling, chocolate butterscotch frosting – caramel drizzle, pink himalayan salt sprinkled on top.
I think it’s funny my friend Christina S. touched on how heavy these bad boys are. Tht was precisely my first though. Holy goodness, this little thing is heavy! So of course I had to go to the scale and weigh it — 5 ozs of sugary yum.
So now, have one dropped in my lap by a coworker and knowing how tasty it was, I’m determined to head over to the cute little shop and try them in person & experience more flavors.

Sugar Monkey, you are not my favorite, but you are growing on me. I definitely feel like I’m cheating on my favorite cupcake shops, but I am not one to pass a cupcake shop without going in; I mean, I’m not a psycho! ;)
My first experience here, I was not a fan. I recall it being dry and heavy. But SM is the bar-​none fave of a friend of mine, so I know it deserved a second shot. For my second experience, I picked up the peach dream for my husband, and a chocolate caramel for myself and we sampled them that night.
Firstly, WOW, it was super heavy, I mean, I wished I had weighed it. I made my husband feel how heavy it was, and he wowed also. Lol As usual, I split each down the middle. The chocolate caramel did not budge, did not crumble, did not topple over delicately. It stood its ground! I was able to make a completely clean cut. Am I bragging about my knife skills? No, I’m simply saying, these cupcakes are solid. Definitely cake-​like, pound cake to be precise. That’s actually a perfect description.
So, that alone, is not for everyone. I typically prefer a light cake with light, airy frosting. This was not. It was a a heavy cake, with heavy frosting. But when we tasted them, each was flavorful. Yay! The peach dream also had a dollop of syrupy peaches tucked inside, a nice surprise. I don’t even like peaches (except peach pie; again, not a psycho, only a psycho doesn’t like peach pie… yeah, I’m talkin to you. ;), but I enjoyed this.
The shop itself is über tiny, and perky with its pink, pink, pink, and 3 cutie pie tables. It makes me feel a little suffocated, but I ease my anxiety with a cupcake, of course.
So, short story, long: it’s not MY favorite, but still tasty. I’m willing to keep going back to see if each experience is better, and if my palate appreciates the difference in these cupcakes compared to others.

Two words– dry and heavy. Very very sweet. I don’t get the obsession with this place? I was too excited to try this place because I had driven there twice to find them closed early due to being sold out. I had the dulce de leche, key lime, chocolate, and a few others.
#DoBetter

Ok… I’ve been in a handful of times since my first review. Tonight, however, I went unplanned. I have a 69 yr. old neighbor lady who LOVES the maple bacon dog on Youtube. I was in the area and swung by; when I saw the maple bacon cupcake, I knew I had to get it for us to try. I only got one because I’ll be honest, I was apprehensive. The helpful guy behind the counter said they were his favorite… and I guess he’s on to something.
Here’s the phone convo I just had after delivering my maple bacon treat to my friend:
«Hello?
OH MY GOD. (mouth sounds a little full)
These maple bacon cupcakes?
They are like the best thing I’ve ever had.
I just want to make a little hole in it and crawl in there and live.»
lol. Maybe you have to know her to know what a kick I get out of her enjoyment… she will tell you straight up what she thinks about something (I know, I’ve shared my cooking with her before!!) So I know she would say «Yay! I’m a fan!»
And for that, I’m a fan too…

Okay I know a lot of people have vehemently stated that we should review this place only on there merits of its cupcakes, and I will get to that, but first: I do firmly believe that many of the choices you make in regard to the way your business looks and the way your product is presented does inform a customer about your quality, standards, innovation, etc. So sometimes, yes, looks do matter.
And let’s be honest, cupcake snobbery should be expected, if not anticipated. Especially when you’re selling $ 36 dollar boxes of cupcakes.
So my point is, I was disappointed when I walked into a tiny, dimly lit shack with a full view of an equally dingy kitchen, because the vibe was more Texas Chainsaw than Sprinkles Cupcakes. Do they bake in the dark, I ask? Do they clean? Are they hiding something? Unfortunately — appearances matter.
When I asked for my reserved cupcakes, I was presented with a cardboard box, brown, with two greasy spots on it and a pink, glorified grocery store sticker with the shop’s name on it. Is this box reused? Was it packaged with clean hands? Again — the presentation of your product matters.
When I got to my car and found that one of the three dollar cupcakes was on its side, smashed into another one, I was displeased.
And then I tasted them.
In all honesty, the cake has the texture and taste of a box mix. Not bad, but not awesome. And not 3 dollars worthy. The frostings are all made with entirely too much powdered sugar — drowning out any intended additional flavor, and creating a gritty texture.
Oh, and the décor is amateur. I’ve honestly made more beautiful cupcakes in my own free time (and creative, I am not).
In short: skip this place, save your money, and go to a bakery that presents you with a clean bright location, a beautiful cupcake, and mind blowing flavor. There are several out there, and you’ll be glad you did.