PORT WASHINGTON, NY — Crumbl Cookies is set to open in Port Washington on Thursday with a grand opening set a day later. The cookie store is at 20 Soundview Marketplace.
Crumbl offers large cookies and a menu that rotates weekly. The rotation, as well as the kinds of cookies Crumbl bakes, separate it from other cookie shops and bakeries, said Mai Pham, one of three co-owners of the Port Washington location.
“A lot of cookie competitors might have a chocolate chip cookie or an M&M cookie,” Pham told Patch. “Our cookies are inspired by a bunch of gourmet desserts. We’ll make cookies inspired by key lime pie or New York cheesecake. This week, we have Reeses Peanut Butter Cup. We have a wide variety of nostalgic desserts, and we put them into cookie form.”
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Pham is joined by co-owners Austin Dickens and David Del Rio. The three have become friends along their mission of bringing a Crumbl to Port Washington.
Crumbl was launched five years ago by cousins Jason McGowan and Sawyer Hemsley. It has since built 800 bakeries across 49 U.S. states and two in Canada. The business allows franchisees to open Crumbl shops in their local communities.
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Dickens, who lives in Port Washington, called the community “tight knit.”
“Everyone kind of knows everyone,” he said. “We’ve got to be really adaptable to our target audience.”
Pham, invoking Crumbl’s mission statement of “bringing friends and family together over a box of the best cookies in the world,” said Port Washington is very family oriented.
“We felt like with the brand, there was a lot of opportunity,” she said. “Our cookies are really big and great for sharing and great for events. We just felt like there was a great case for Crumbl here and our product adds to the dessert-scape.”
Dickens encouraged people to bring their friends and family and say hi when the store opens.
Other than the rotating menu, Pham believes the open kitchen concept is what separates Crumbl from competitors.
“When people walk in, they’ll be able to smell and see the entire baking process from start to finish,” she said. “We want our customers to know when they come through our doors, they get high-quality hospitality and service, but they’re also getting a high-quality product that’s made from scratch and served warm or chilled.”
Crumbl offers a mobile app — the Port Washington team expects to go live on June 21 — as well as curbside pick-up, delivery, and order-ahead store pick-up.
The shop will also cater events, birthday parties and other functions.
The Port Washington store marks the first Crumbl for the franchise trio of Pham, Dickens and Del Rio.
Dickens and Del Rio met in 2013 while attending culinary school at Johnson and Wales University in Denver. The two became fast friends and moved to New York to pursue opportunity in the restaurant industry.
Dickens, an Alaska native, landed in Port Washington with Del Rio in 2016 after a family friend recommended the community as quiet, charming, and an easy commute to the city.
Dickens founded Last Frontier Hospitality in 2018 with the vision of helping restaurants incorporate hospitality and technology into their food and beverage programs. The team found itself without clients, opportunity or direction after the coronavirus pandemic shutdown began in 2020.
In 2022, Pham, an entrepreneur, was looking for a like-minded operating partner to build her own vision with. Her best friend from college introduced her to his cousin: Dickens. After many calls and meetings, the trio decided to team up to make their dreams a reality.
Pham had wanted to open a Crumbl for awhile but lacked the restaurant background or operating experience.
“It was something I felt was a really great brand and New York was pretty underdeveloped for the brand at the time, so I felt like there was a huge market opportunity,” Pham said.
The three originally thought of starting a business from scratch, but Crumbl fit what they were looking for in an opportunity.
“We really liked the product,” Pham said. “We felt the brand was strong in terms of their mission statement and its ‘why.’ It kind of aligned with what we were hoping to do. A bunch of things have to check the boxes, and it just happened that Crumbl was a great opportunity.”
Now, they are set to welcome the Port Washington community to their own location.
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