This is big.
From Pulp Juice Bar’s gallon-sized boba bag to El Tepeyac’s six-pound honker of a burrito, oversized dishes make for a thrilling moment at the table. Not only do they provide choice fodder for social media, racking up likes and hearts for dopamine-starved diners, the impressive dishes also help restaurants gain more customers. One of the most impressive specimens is a two-pound cinnamon roll found at a Costa Mesa’s Plums Cafe.
The inspiration for the sugar-and-spice leviathan came during a trip to Sedona, Arizona.
“My wife and I were on vacation in Sedona last year and went to a place called Red Rock Cafe where they had a three-pound cinnamon roll called ‘Three Pounds of Happiness,’” said Tim Campbell, owner of Plums Cafe. “We were there on a Wednesday and it was flying out the door.”
After returning home, Campbell got to work with his chef to create their own version. The smaller yet by no means less impressive, two-pound cinnamon roll is made from scratch and baked in a spring-form pan to maintain its characteristically circular shape.
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On a recent visit to the 32-year-old eatery, the two-pounder came to the table warm, laced with plenty of in-house icing and packed with cinnamon. As a lifelong cinnamon roll proselytizer, I was pleased with the spice-forward ratio of cinnamon to sugar. While the mighty roll is enough to feed at least four, its expansiveness also allows more than one or two bites of what is widely considered the best part of the pastry, its plush center.
And, mercifully, Plums Cafe does not desecrate its mega roll with raisins or, more egregious, chopped walnuts.
Plums Cafe also offers diners the chance to win a free t-shirt (reading “Cinnamon challenges at Plums – I ate the whole thing”) if they can consume the behemoth in 20 minutes or less. Under the watchful eye of the restaurant manager, guests have the option of taking part in the time challenge, like one famous competitive eater did in 2023.
The pastry didn’t truly gain mainstream traction until Raina Huang, who has made a name for herself for eating mass quantities of new and intriguing foods for her scores of followers, consumed the pastry in only three minutes and twenty seconds. Her video of the challenge has since amassed more than 36,000 views on YouTube and millions more on her Instagram and TikTok platforms.
Ever since, Campbell said Plums Cafe now sells around 10 of its mega rolls per day, but few emerge victorious when it comes to the 20-minutes challenge. “Very few win – but usually younger high school kids do when they try,” said Campbell, who also owns Cappy’s Cafe in Newport Beach.
The cinnamon roll, which patrons can find on Plums Cafe’s secret menu (a menu that also includes a matcha latte, sweet potato hash and a loaded patty melt), costs $20. Not a bad price for a dish that’s the size of a snacking cake.
Before social media, the Guinness Book of World Records celebrated tackling culinary feats adjacent to devouring a colossal cinnamon roll but on a much larger scale: La Costeña, a Mexican grocery store in Mountain View, made headlines for setting the benchmark for large burritos after completing a 3,500-foot-long,12,785-pound version in 1997. But now such notoriety is easier to achieve thanks to myriad social media platforms that allow nearly any restaurant or diner to boast about jumbo fare.
With one as comforting and thoughtfully prepared at Plums Cafe’s cinnamon roll, let’s hope we see more of these beautiful beasts.
Find it: 369 E 17th Street, Costa Mesa
