Popular on TikTok, national cookie chain plans new location in West Fargo – InForum
WEST FARGO — A local franchisee brings a
in West Fargo this summer.
Bismarck native Colton Nunley brings the brand to the greater North Dakota metropolitan area. Nunley and her family are also behind a Crumbl Cookies location in her hometown.
The growing chain
dates back to its first store in Logan, Utah
which opened in 2017. It was there that Nunley got to know the brand while he was a student in the state.
Nunley originally studied industrial psychology. He ended up changing course to devote himself to dentistry. All the while, he had been missing his time working in the restaurant industry. “I had run several different restaurants during my time while I was in school. I just really wanted to come back,” he recalled to InForum.
Once he met Crumbl Cookies, he knew he wanted to bring a place to the Peace Garden State. “I used to live in Utah, but the idea of bringing a Crumbl home, because North Dakota has always been my home, it was really enticing,” he said.
Nunley and his family opened the Bismarck store in April 2021. The store has received “lots of love” from customers, he said, some of whom have come all the way from Fargo to collect cookies .
Given the success of the Bismarck boutique, Nunley thought the chain would be a perfect fit for the Fargo area. He settled on a location along Veterans Boulevard, a location where he believes he can best take advantage of the metro area’s growth. “We are also very excited about the spot,” he commented. “It looks like West Fargo is really growing, and veterans are a good place for that.”
Crumbl Cookies has grown rapidly since opening its first location in Utah.
As of March, the company had 384 bakeries in 36 states. That figure includes Nunleys’ Bismarck store, nine in Minnesota and two in South Dakota.
Part of Crumbl’s explosive expansion can be attributed to the
after the company expanded on the TikTok video-sharing app
. Crumbl Cookies has amassed 4.5 million subscribers on the platform, with her videos regularly attracting millions of views.
Crumbl’s menu rotates weekly, Nunley explained, with six cookies featured each week. The rotation includes over 200 different cookie varieties. These varieties range from tried-and-true chocolate chip sugar cookies to the exotic, like a chilled sugar cookie with Sour Patch Kids or a hazelnut churro cookie.
The rotation usually includes a chocolate chip cookie and a sugar cookie. Although Nunley said her preference is for classic oatmeal raisin cookies, the weekly changes add to the delight of Crumbl customers and bakers alike.
Crumbl’s cookies are baked daily in-store from start to finish, Nunley said. A new dough is made every day. After baking, the cookies are kept in a warmer for three hours to maintain their freshness. The sights and smells of baking are central to the experience inside Crumbl Cookies, he noted.
Due to the demands of daily cooking, Nunley said he hoped to hire 50 employees to staff the store. “We’re usually pretty busy to have that many people,” he remarked. “It’s a very, very fresh product and we’re going to need a lot of happy bakers here in Fargo.”
Nunley has a personal favorite from when he ran restaurants.
It was the hot dog restaurant he oversaw. It offered a no-frills menu, either Polish dog or beef with six condiments. “I felt like I was having a barbecue every day I was at work,” Nunley remarked. “It’s just the ultimate work environment.”
He hopes Crumbl Cookies will provide a similar environment, but with sweet treats rather than salty staples. “Because it’s a simple product and a very good quality food you’re offering, you can focus on caring for customers and providing them with an experience,” Nunley said. “We have this awesome product and we only make six of them. This way we can focus on people as they enter the store. »
This aspect of the business model is what appealed most to Nunley. “I loved that it was a place that wasn’t just about the product,” he explained. “We make really good cookies, but it’s also about the culture that comes with the store.”
Nunley hopes to open its location in West Fargo in early July. Construction of the store is expected to begin this week. Due to Fargo’s higher population and glut of events, he expects the store “to be even busier” than Bismarck’s.
Until opening, Nunley plans to continue enjoying the benefits of operating a cookie shop. “I can’t tell you how many cookies I got,” he joked.
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