"Most bakeries are second — or third — generation kind of affairs," Charles Nelson said. "We want to try to say 'Hey, bakeries can be cool and hip and have the best ingredients — no trans fats, imported chocolate, real chocolate sprinkles, great flavors with natural zest."'

On April 13, 2005, they opened their first Sprinkles store in a 600-foot space on Little Santa Monica Boulevard, just a block and a half off Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

From there, the rest is pretty much history.

On their opening day, Sprinkles sold out of its cupcakes in three hours and had angry customers literally banging on the windows when they ran out, Charles Nelson said. The next day, after the Nelsons stayed up almost the entire night to prepare, it happened again.

It was exciting, overwhelming and scary.

"We were like, 'Oh my gosh, everything we hoped and dreamed for is happening, and we can't handle it,"' Charles Nelson said.

Like most new business kinks, they worked through that initial problem and stuck to their original long-term plan: continue to make the best cupcakes possible.

Sprinkles Cupcakes opened a second location in Newport Beach in August 2006, opting for a second California location to appease the people who were driving almost 60 miles to come to their Beverly Hills store.

After similar success there — not to mention celebrity endorsements by Katie Holmes, an appearance on the Oprah show that boosted their already booming sales by 50 percent and a request by Williams-Sonoma to sell their Sprinkles cupcake mix in stores — the Nelsons finally decided it was time to open a location outside of California.

"We were like, let's go out to the middle of the country and see what happens," Charles Nelson said.

The result was nothing short of success.

In March, Sprinkles opened its third store in Dallas to similar long lines and interest among the media. Now the company's next stop is in Scottsdale, Ariz., followed by 15 other locations, including London and Tokyo.