If you have a hard time resisting warm, fresh-baked cookies, watch out for future drives down Highway 31. Crumbl Cookies will soon be serving them up from a storefront in the Vestavia City Center next to TrustCare in the building adjacent to Panera Bread. On the day we typed this article, the weekly cookie flavors in rotation were Oatmeal Raisin, Muddy Buddy (a peanut butter cookie topped with melted chocolate and muddy buddy pieces), Cosmic Brownie (topped with fudge glaze and cosmic rainbow bits) and Cinnamon Swirl (topped with cinnamon sugar and cream cheese frosting), all complete with tempting images on crumblcookies.com. The bakery is planning to open in early June and stay open for late-night cookie cravings (Monday-Thursday 8 a.m.-10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday 8 a.m.-midnight). To learn more we chatted with its owners of the Vestavia Hills operation.
What’s the story behind the Crumbl concept?
Crumbl was started by two cousins who tasted hundreds of cookies and came up with the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Their mission is to bring family together around the world’s greatest box of cookies. It started with one store in Logan, Utah, almost four years ago, and they started booming and getting a big response and decided to franchise.
How did you discover it, and why did you decide to open a Vestavia Hills location?
My husband, Jason, and I visited the first Crumbl store in the Southeast in Tennessee and fell in love with the store and the concept. There are now more than 150 locations, and when we were first talking to them 16 months ago, there were only 60-something. We wanted to bring it to Birmingham, and the Vestavia market is booming right now. We liked what was happening with the City Center and the community feel there.
Tell us more about the cookies themselves.
We sell gourmet cookies and Crumbl Cream ice cream in the summer. There are six cookie flavors that will rotate each week and more than 150 total flavors, and we will always have a warm chocolate chip and a chilled sugar cookie. The cookies are huge, about a 5-inch, and are soft. There is nothing frozen about them. They are served warm, and we mix the cookies right there in front of you.
What are some of the rotating flavors and anything else we should know about the menu?
We have Biscoff Lava, Nutella Mudslide, Strawberry Pop-Tart, Peanut Butter and Jelly, Chilled Twix, Cake Batter, Funfetti, Snickers—all sorts of yumminess. Around the holidays we have flavors like pumpkin. We post the flavors of the week each Sunday on our national social media account @crumblcookies and website. You can get a single cookie, four pack, six pack or a dozen all in our signature pink box. The four-pack box is the most popular.
What does the inside of the bakery look and feel like?
It’s an open bakery style, and you can come in and watch the bakers bake. It’s been called the Apple store for cookies, and the inside has clean lines and a techy feel. The design is all pink and white and black. We have a great curbside app that was developed in COVID, and we also do delivery. If you download the app, you get a free cookie when you come into the store the day after our opening date in June.
