ScottCakes

In a pink-walled basement on Commercial Street, ScottCakes sells one item and nothing else: a golden butter cake under a swirl of pink vanilla buttercream. There are no rotating flavors, no seasonal specials, no coffee menu to round out the order. One cupcake, made one way, on purpose.

The single-minded devotion has an origin story to match. Scott Cunningham, a former actor and nanny, arrived in Provincetown in 2008 for a six-week theater engagement and stayed. He had baked these cupcakes for the children he once cared for, using a recipe adapted from a 1950s Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, and in 2009 he began selling them from a table on the street.

That’s when things got complicated. The town had granted Cunningham vending permits, then decided in 2010 they’d been issued in error — a zoning bylaw prohibited outdoor food sales. After a competitor complained, the building commissioner issued a cease-and-desist order, and police began ticketing him for selling cupcakes on the sidewalk. Rather than give up, Cunningham relocated his operation to the town’s former firehouse in partnership with the AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod, donating a share of the proceeds. He contested the fines and prepared to take it to a jury trial. In January 2011, the district attorney’s office declined to prosecute and the town dropped the case. A few months later, he opened the permanent storefront that’s still there.

The shop runs seasonally, but the cupcakes ship year-round to people who, having had one, decided one flavor was plenty.