Funnel cakes and ice cream are two of the staples of "fair food" menu and theme parks throughout America serve tons of these sweet treats each summer.
	For the 1985 season, Six Flags Great Adventure added a new place to grab a sweet treat before leaving the park. Up until that point, this was something that was very much lacking at Great Adventure since the park's entrance area was relocated in 1976. For many years, the Avenue of the States section had trees and flowers lining both sides of the pathway, but lacked the major retail and food spaces that most parks feature along the entry and exit pathways. The Sweet Cakes & Cones was stand alone outlet with two large windows and a set of double doors at its center.  For its first seven seasons, the facility lacked a distinct name or any signage other than the words "Soft Serve Cones" and "Funnel Cake" on the window awnings and "Cones" on a stained glass transom window above the doors.  The stand's original name was simply "Soft Serve Funnel Cakes" until 1993  when it became known as Sweet Cakes & Cones, a name which it still has today.
	With the arrival of Time Warner management in the early 1990's great care was taken to upgrade the entire park, sometimes in the simplest ways. A perfect example of this was the addition of a new sign on the shop. Throughout the park, changes like this were occurring with many attractions which lacked any kind of name or sign for many years getting new monikers to create themed areas where they were lacking or non-existent. This was just the beginning of the big changes in store.
The 1993-94 off-season saw amazing changes throughout Great Adventure as Time Warner was working to improve the park and introduce theming to make them a step above regional amusement parks and hot on the tail of Disney Parks. One of the most dramatic changes came to Great Adventure's entrance plaza as the former Avenue of the States was fully transformed into a Colonial America themed Main Street. The upgrades included a total replacement of the area's pavement and landscaping as well as construction of a whole new larger shop across the way from Sweet Cakes & Cones called the Looney Tunes Shoppe.
	To make the existing building fit the new Colonial theme, the awnings were removed and many small details were added to extend Main Street's theme, right down to new curtains in the windows. The area between Sweet Cakes & Cones and the Sweet Tooth Candy store had a new Village Bake Shop facade added to create the look of additional store fronts as well as a small patio dining area was added offering a place for guests to sit and relax and enjoy their sweet and often messy treats before they left the park. A wooden sign for Pittman's Tavern, an Easter egg/tribute to Six Flags CEO Bob Pittman who was overseeing the chain for Time Warner and instrumental in the park's transformation, was placed on the side of the dessert stand.  The sign featured a pewter drinking stein and the year 1794, an obvious spin on the year the area was remodeled - 1994.
	Over time the Sweet Cakes & Cones building had several modifications to improve efficiency and operations. A walk up window was added on one side of the building as a way to offer express service for ice cream. Too often the line for the funnel cakes deterred guests, so those who just wanted ice cream no longer had to stand in that line. In addition a side door was added on the right side of the building creating a better flow with the front door serving as the entrance and the side door as the exit. The store has been repainted several times, and the original Colonial style divided pane windows were replaced with new and more energy efficient double hung windows.
	For the Holiday in the Park events, Sweet Cakes & Cones has been temporarily renamed the Main Street Bakery, offering a wide variety of delicious baked goods for the holiday season.  Over time, the menu of treats has been tweaked with changes in food trends, but the basic menu of soft serve ice cream and funnel cakes has remained constant. Since the stand opened it has been one of the most popular food locations in the park.
Original Spotlight:  August 29, 2021.  GAH Reference#:  FOOD-1985-002