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Friday, June 25, 2021

'The cookies saved our business': Cookies & Dreams expanded by promoting connection throughout pandemic - Quad-City Times

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When Stephanie Sellers started laying the groundwork for Cookies & Dreams in January 2020, she didn’t know the coronavirus pandemic would cause a worldwide shutdown two months later.

But instead of being an unexpected burden, Sellers said the pandemic allowed her specialty cookie company to flourish.

“If you can send a box of cookies to a family member or drop off a piece on the doorstep of a friend, that meant so much to so many people, just that small gesture,” Sellers said. “It was really just a way for people to connect with their family and friends and fellow humans during a time in our history when connection was cut off.”

In addition to brick and mortar stores in Davenport, which opened in September 2020, and Bettendorf, which opened in January 2021, Sellers is opening five more locations before the end of the year. The third location in Coralville, Iowa is set to open in July. The other four locations in Tinley Park, Ill., Oak Lawn, Ill., Naperville, Ill., and Ankeny, Iowa are set to open this fall/winter.

Also, Cookies & Dreams’ shipping operations are moving to a 14,000-square-foot warehouse in Davenport to expand its national delivery services.

Sellers started Cookies & Dreams based on the rate of cookie sales at her restaurant Baked, which she co-owns in the Village of East Davenport with her husband, Bill Scheeder.

Sellers said after Davenport’s flood of 2019, she was worried her restaurant wouldn’t survive through the upcoming winter and was looking for a way to diversify her business.

“Although our business wasn't flooded itself, we still were affected because the main access point to the village was closed for, I want to say almost three months,” Sellers said. “So we're looking at what we can do to diversify ourselves as we come into another winter. We're looking at our product mix and our top seller in the whole business is chocolate chip cookies.”

Initially, in January 2020, after deciding to create Cookies & Dreams, Sellers did pop-up sales of cookies in different areas of the Quad-Cities. Some of these sales would sell out in 20 minutes, according to Scheeder, so they decided to invest in a van. In February 2020, Cookies & Dreams signed a lease for their first brick and mortar location in Davenport.

While the construction for the Davenport location was underway, the cookie sales at Baked increased even after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Scheeder. Some days cookie sales made up 75% of total transactions for the restaurant.

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“The cookies saved our business and saved our employees, pretty much saved everything,” Scheeder said. “All we sold was cookies at the restaurant and that was the beginning.”

Although no one was allowed in the new storefronts until September 2020, take-out and shipping cookie orders rose throughout the pandemic.

Jessica Niggebrugge, director of operations for Cookies & Dreams, said that although sales were high, figuring out COVID-19 protocols for a new business was challenging,

“The most difficult part and the most concerning part for us was keeping our staff and our team members healthy,” Niggebrugge said. “There was a shortage of gloves. At one point, a box of gloves was $100.”

Sellers said obtaining the right ingredients during the pandemic was another challenge.

“We also experienced a lot of supply chain issues, and not being able to get ingredients and ingredient costs and prices being all over the place,” Sellers said.

Moving out of the pandemic, Sellers said Cookies & Dreams’ biggest challenge is the cost of new construction and opening stores in the Chicago area.

“Chicago stayed a little bit more shut down for a longer period of time than we did here in the Quad-Cities in Iowa,” Sellers said. “They weren't working in the office and getting permits and getting things ready to go in order to start construction took a little bit longer.”

In the future, Sellers said she hopes Cookies & Dreams continues to give back to nonprofits in their surrounding communities.

“We love to support the community that we're in, especially the Quad-Cities, being our home base,” Sellers said.

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'The cookies saved our business': Cookies & Dreams expanded by promoting connection throughout pandemic - Quad-City Times

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