Two cousins, a box of cookies and one big dream. Back in 2017, Crumbl Cookie was co-founded in Utah by Jason McGowan (CEO) and Sawyer Hemsley (COO), becoming one of the nation’s fastest growing gourmet cookie delivery and takeout companies. After perfecting their cookie recipe, the two of them sought to share their cookies with the rest of the nation and have store locations in 36 states, with 264 bakeries nationwide. Here in Cedar Rapids, a new Crumbl Cookie store has recently opened at 1005 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, their very first store in Iowa. The business’ soft opening was on November 11 and its grand opening was on November 12. The store owners, Jason and Heather Chappell, commented on what inspired them to open a Crumbl Cookie store in Cedar Rapids. “We had went to one [a Crumbl store] when we were in Arizona and just kind of fell in love with it,” Heather said. Heather is a dental hygienist and was not working for a few months when COVID-19 hit, giving her the opportunity to explore opening a Crumbl store. “. . . We just looked into it and one thing led to another and here we are,” Heather said. Crumbl Cookie stores offer four to five specialty flavors weekly that are inspired by popular flavors, foods and different kinds of desserts. They also have standard favorites, like warm chocolate chip and chilled sugar cookies. For the week of December 5, flavors include Gingerbread Cake, Mom’s Favorite, Mother’s Reindeer Games inspired sugar cookies, and choclate cookies with York candies. The flavor rotation was officially established in December of 2018. Xavier senior, Berkley Johnson, who recently started working at Crumbl Cookie as a baker, explains her Crumbl experience. “I started working at Crumbl because it seemed like a fun place to work because you get to make cookies, and the cookies taste so good. So far I’ve really enjoyed working there because all of the employees are so nice and we get to listen to music while we work,” Johnson said. With everyone at home during the pandemic, many businesses turned to social media as more and more people went online. It was during this time when Crumbl gained a lot of attention and had a large increase in sales in the last year. According to The Takeout, a food publication, Crumbl had an increase in year-over-year growth of 93 percent, which makes it one of the highest performing new businesses. Some say this is because of Crumbl’s internet presence. Their Tiktok account boasts 3.2 million followers and they have 1.5 million followers on Instagram. McGowan gives insight on how he wants Crumbl to impact the community. “We couldn’t be more thrilled to bring Crumbl to so many communities around the nation. We hope our customers love these cookies as much as we do,” McGowan said. “At Crumbl, our goal is to bring families and friends together over the world’s best box of cookies. This level of growth will help us do that in a bigger, and more impactful way.” Crumbl Cookie is open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday. On Fridays and Saturdays, they are open from 8 a.m. to midnight and are closed on Sundays. Go visit today!