"Wait—is your name Brenda?" Mignon François says, directing a 1,000-watt smile over the glass case that separates her from customers. The woman grins, and after a few minutes of small talk she leaves, cradling a box of cupcakes like a brand-new hat. Then Mignon directs the full sun of her attention to the next person in line.
"Alaina? That's my sister's name!" Mignon exclaims, packaging a red-velvet cupcake while her husband A.E. looks on with a sleepy end-of-the-day smile. By the time the student steps outside, Mignon has gotten out of her the school she attends (Meharry), her major (emergency medicine) and her plans for Valentine's weekend.
This helps to explain why, in just a few short months, the Cupcake Collection has been embraced by its Germantown neighbors as if it had always been there—at least as long as the neighborhood's old Elliott School, whose transom window A.E. fashioned into his cupcake case. A wait at the shop's small, bustling front counter feels less like a transaction than a stop at a friend's parlor, which isn't far from the truth: The bakery operates out of the Françoises' large, welcoming 108-year-old house on Sixth Avenue.
Mignon first caught A.E.'s eye as a student at Our Lady of Holy Cross College in New Orleans. He was a former Army Ranger and staff sergeant, and the son of the first black conductor on the Southern Pacific Railroad; she was amassing what eventually became a triple major in mass communications, psychology and photography. (She finished her degree while pregnant with their fourth child.) "It took me about a month to say hello," says A.E., whose easy, friendly manner belies his skill as a sharpshooter.
He caught Mignon's eye, she recalls with a laugh, when he watched her so intently he tripped. Their first true meeting was a disaster: He ran after her, she thought he was a purse-snatcher, and her screams brought the cops. Today, their six children staff the counter (minus the two in college in New Orleans) and assume kitchen duties. On this particular afternoon, Xavier, 7, is all business as he mans the register and the debit-card machine, while brother Alexius, 22, keeps watch.
"We believe in working hard," A.E. says. The Françoises' day begins anywhere between 2:30 and 4 a.m., as A.E. lugs in the 50-pound sugar sack the bakery goes through every day. Six a.m. is family Bible study. All in all, the day's baking takes about seven hours; icing the cakes takes about five. A.E. grates the chocolate and the carrots himself.
Cupcakes these days are...well, hardly a dime a dozen: The Françoises' are among the cheapest in town at $1.50 apiece. But so many cupcake joints have opened in Middle Tennessee over the past few years—so many good ones—that there's a danger of sugar fatigue. That might be a problem, if the Françoises saw their business as pushing pastries.
"They're so much more than cupcakes to me," says Mignon, her hair tucked neatly under a knit cap, her eyes merry behind large spectacles. A.E. had been a cabinetmaker who rehabbed houses, and Mignon says he just looked exhausted and unhealthy. She prayed about what to do, and the answer came back: cupcakes. Even though she wasn't a baker—a fact that staggers those hooked on the bakery's buttercream delights—she called her grandmother for guidance and instruction.
Today, they go through as many as 1,000 cupcakes a day, and A.E. says he's never been happier. "The Lord just keeps making opportunities better and better for us," he says. On the counter is a bouquet of flowers, courtesy of a nearby precinct captain thanking the Françoises for their donation of cupcakes—a frequent occurrence at police departments, firehouses and women's shelters around the city.
And Mignon says that even if she doesn't use her collegiate skills, she's still found a way to help and heal people. She's fond of recalling the woman who told her she quit her miserable job after tasting one of their cupcakes, or the out-of-towner who found them a consolation after his father's death. An afternoon in the Cupcake Collection proves the message of Raymond Carver's story "A Small Good Thing": that something a simple and heartfelt as a baked treat can salve the world's sorrows. "I give out as many hugs as I give out cupcakes," Mignon François says.
Clockwise, from upper left: Mignon, Dillon, Xavier, Brittany, A.E. and Alexius Francois, photographed at Cupcake Collection by Eric England
