Sometimes a cookie is not just a cookie.
Judging from the seven other Crumbl stores Tanner and Karli Reaveley have opened so far since they started their Crumbl invasion of Florida a year and a half ago, they expect a line of customers starting before 8 a.m. Friday when Palm Coast’s own Crumbl opens at Island Walk off Palm Coast Parkway.
Judging from the delirium that has attended a lot of these openings since this company and its giant cookies, its equally ample marketing machine, its symphonic repertoire and its roseate-pink cookie boxes emerged out of Logan, Utah, only six years ago, the line may still be there as late as midnight, if only because Palm Coast has never known a dessert store to match bar hours.
Crumbl will: 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays, and to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. Crumbl stores close on Sundays, but not their buzz machine.
The store will employ 30 to 35 people, Tanner Reaveley said Wednesday afternoon as he got the store ready with his wife and mother. (Palm Coast does not appear on the drop-down menue of locations taking applications, on the company’s webpage.)
He and his wife are originally from Utah. “We were in Florida and realize there’s not a lot of options for sweets. There’s not a lot of options for cookies and eating out at times,” Tanner Reaveley said. “We thought Crumbl would fit really well here. So that’s kind of why here. Palm Coast in general was kind of along the same lines. There’s some ice cream shops, but it’s missing two things. One, another dessert option outside ice cream, and two, a late night option. Palm Coast does tend to, you know, shut down a little bit earlier.”
The couple opened its first store in Boynton Beach, focusing its expansions on South Florida. Other franchisees have opened Crumbl Cookies in DeLand and in the Jacksonville area (there are about 20 stores statewide, 800 nationwide and rising), but everything in between had been a bit of a cookie desert.
The Palm Coast connection began through a Crumbl executive who had vacationed here with the company founder. They liked the area. They talked to Reaveley about expanding. He followed through, making it a beachhead. “We are looking to potentially in the future maybe bring it to some surrounding towns,” Reaveley said.
By one measure, Crumbl franchises are richly lucrative: “Crumbl franchise is pretty transparent and they disclosed the sales and financials for 140 of their locations that operated throughout 2021,” the website VettedBiz reported. “In the 2021 calendar year total median revenue was $1,687,731 at a gross profit margin of $707,912.53 and then a net profit of $279,212. If you’re investing $227,666 to $567,833, and, once the business scales up, you can expect $279,212 in net profit. That’s not a bad deal.” (1851franchise.com provides the following financial summary.) So there is that.
“We love the cookies. We love the concept. We love how there’s new new flavors every week,” Reaveley said, referring to one of the company’s allure: some 275 rotating cookie flavors, six of them featured every week, resulting in enough variety to keep it seemingly new for most of the year. Think brownie batter cookie, confetti milkshake, krispie treat cookie.
Of course there are the standards: always some sort of chocolate chip cookie, always some sort of sugar cookie. Just don’t look at the nutrition facts–and skip the rest of this paragraph if you want to keep the guilts off the scale: It may be disturbing to some readers.
To wit: that confetti milkshake selling right now, according to the company, adds up to 880 calories (a Big Mac is only 590 calories), almost twice as many calories as a large fries, with 64 grams of sugar (25 more than a can of coke). Saturated fats? We’ll leave that be. Of course in the world of portion-euphemizing one cookie is meant to equate to four servings, considerably reducing those shocks to the system–assuming you favor self-control (“I could eat 12 of these in 20 minutes,” says one reviewer of another variety).
Nothing in the company’s strategy encourages it (no “eat responsibly” messages), starting with imagery so luscious that it turns cookies into a promiscuity of desires. And just as casinos display no clocks, the company’s website displays no prices. Not readily, anyway–not until you make your way through orders, and prices could vary depending on location. In Palm Coast, a company spokesperson said, prices will be $4.50 for a single cookie, $14.63 for a 4-pack, $22.50 for a 6-pack, and $38.25 for a Party Box of 12.
Crumble owes much of its strange success–it is the fastest growing dessert chain in the country–to its deft social media strategy. The company has its own choreographed “flavor drops” every Sunday at 8 p.m. TikTok is the platform of choice. Cleverly, the drops happen the one day when the stores are closed, to build up craving. It’s sugar, after all: its addictive. So customers do the rest, posting images of their cookies on their social media pages with abandon. It’s obviously working. Crumbl was selling around a million cookies a day in 2022.
Consumers and so-called influencers in turn critique, debate, dispute, share, retweet and triple-guess the new flavors, arguing over whether the terms “home-baked” can legitimately be used to refer to the colossal and colossally synchronized-swimming-like production of those millions of cookies in 800 stores, whether they can be reproduced (“There’s actually not a way to get the exact recipe. I am a manager at Crumbl and they use what they call “packets” in order to keep the recipes from being recreated,” went a comment on Reddit) or despairing over old favorites (“42 weeks without the Oreo mallow sandwich”). The Crumbl Cookie v. Cookie Insomnia battle is its own subplot.
Reaveley says it’s all fresh ingredients made in the store. “It’s not just frozen processed puck that’s made somewhere, we make it the same way that you would make cookies at home,” he said. “It’s all just made here on a bigger scale.”
Furthering the marketing specialties, Crumbl has its own pink delivery vehicle–no DoorDash or Uber Eats for these cookies–delivering up to 10 miles out in any direction from the Island Walk store. That’s pretty much all of Palm Coast, and even parts of Flagler Beach (9.9 miles from the store to the pier), if you’re craving that late-night sugar fix. (The dessert chain Insomnia Cookies is famous for its late-night deliveries, but the nearest ones are either in Orlando or in Jacksonville.)
Reaveley and his wife, who have a young child, will launch the Island Walk store then return to their home base in Palm Beach County. He plans on developing relationships with local food banks like Grace Community Food Pantry to turn over product that may be just past its shelf life but not its expiration date.
Meanwhile, the rotating menu of 275 flavors begins Friday.
The Sour Kraut says
I wish them luck. Palm Coast needs more businesses.
Sally says
Let’s see how long they stay in business. We have seen them come, go, come, go, come, go and it goes on and on and on.
Me want Cookie!!! says
My kid is chomping at the bit for the grand opening, must be that TikToc marketing. Lets see if they go woke and broke, but hey Sallys ice cream was successful so maybe the parking scene will get even more intense @ Island walk we’ll see!
Joseph Barand says
So with sales tax your talking about a $5.00 cookie. Not in this lifetime. I can buy a 24 pack of cookies at Publix for the cost of a single Crumble Cookie. I hope they have a short lease excuse they won’t be there for long .
Not Ready to Crumble says
Update!!! LOL OK it was Mobbed the place was a zoo. We waited some minutes in line just to get inside the door. Crowd consisted mainly of Jr. highsckool kids and bewildered overwhelmed parents. Slick iPad point of sale setup setup you either pick a $4.50 single cookie or a box configuration, then tap the picture of the cookie you want in your box, we get the 4 cookie box for $15 bucks, it was eventually handed over like a newborn baby while frantic pre-teens took videos for their tiki toc updates. A 12 ounce bottle of milk costs what a gallon does at Public next door. Kid was very pleased. Im glad because were never going there again! To put this in perspective, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream is BOGO @ Public buy one get one free again this week, 2 pints for $5.99, which would you rather have 5 pints of Chunky Monkey or 4 cookies? And you are seriously taking your life into your hands in that parking lot that weird funky dog leg in front of Brass Tap, you’ve got inebriated people trying to back out of their space at the bar with high volume traffic for Jersey Mikes and Metro now this place its a fender bender waiting to happen its worse than the post office!!!
Shark says
More low paying jobs and high priced products.
Eileen Araujo says
$22.50 for 6 cookies? They better be more than good. They better supply the service of feeding them to people. Top it all off, they start counter wait staff off at $8 an hour (waitress pay) and expect you to rely on tips from the customer…who can afford to tip at $4.50 per cookie…..The owners are coming with Palm Beach prices….we will see how long they last.
Flapharmtech says
Crumble cookies laser focused on obesity trend. Biz model cannot lose. Congrats to all.
Veronica says
Please remember to tip your servers! This store operates as a restaurant, and the servers really on tips to “make up the difference”!
joe says
Another employer paying low wages, but expecting customers to tip to “make up the difference” of what he should be paying his employees???
Veronica says
Completely agree! I was shocked when I was told.
Mary says says
Too many businesses now are expecting customers to support their low paid staff. Everyone is asking for tips and making it more difficult to not tip.
tulip says
With all the people that are complaining about the price of eggs or food, they willingly go and buy a $5.00 cookie or expensive cupcakes??? crazy. At least the eggs and food last longer than a couple of bites.If I want “extra nice” cookies I’ll by the pepperidge farm ones in the bag, especially the milano or the soft baked for a whole lot less than $22.50 .
Dennis C Rathsam says
I have to take out a loan to buy a dozen cookies! Who,s gonna pay 4.50 for one cookie? This will turn out to be a bad idea, I wish them luck, but I dont think P/C is ready for this maybe Miami, or Naples. Im just sayin!!!
Nancy Walsh says
I have to agree. As a community of retirees and lower paid workers $4.50 is too much for me. Like you, I wish them luck and hope I a wrong.
Donald J Trump says
When I come to Palm Coast to campaign, I will pay for the entire city to enjoy a cookie. The owner will get screwed, the patrons will get fat and I will get elected again. The money I promise to pay will vanish and my kids will go on Fox and tell the viewers what a humble and great guy I am.