Gourmet Cookie Shop Coming to East Memphis

The Daily Memphian

A Crumbl Cookies shop is coming to Williamsburg Village Shopping Center early next spring in the same new building where Torchy’s Tacos and Greys cheese shop will open.

Yes, the regular cookies are $3.48 each.

But consider not just the quality of the ingredients — like cracked eggs, real butter, cream cheese and heavy cream, Dawn Foods baking ingredients, and Guittard chocolate chips — but the size of the Crumbl cookie, said Sam Hiatt, one of the franchise partners for the Memphis-area.

“I would say our cookies are large. It’s hard for someone to eat all of it in one sitting. Ours are 4.5 inches in diameter,” said Hiatt, the operating partner who was born in Memphis but lives in Franklin, Tennessee. “So a lot of people cut it up.”

And there’s something Hiatt started to tell The Daily Memphian before stopping himself.

“There is a secret… wait, I can’t talk about that,” he said.

Pressed about the category of secret, Hiatt said it involves “the consistency of the cookie. It makes it more fluffy on the inside, or crumbly just like our name.

“Crumbl does a good job of cookies baked like we think everybody would want them: warm, and soft in the center and slightly crispy on the outside.

“I would say our cookies are large. It’s hard for someone to eat all of it in one sitting. Ours are 4.5 inches in diameter,” said Hiatt, the operating partner who was born in Memphis but lives in Franklin, Tennessee. “So a lot of people cut it up.”

And there’s something Hiatt started to tell The Daily Memphian before stopping himself.

“There is a secret… wait, I can’t talk about that,” he said.

Pressed about the category of secret, Hiatt said it involves “the consistency of the cookie. It makes it more fluffy on the inside, or crumbly just like our name.

“Crumbl does a good job of cookies baked like we think everybody would want them: warm, and soft in the center and slightly crispy on the outside.

All Crumbl Cookies shops offer the same six flavors each week. But two flavors — chocolate chip and chilled sugar cookie — are permanently on the menu while the other four rotate weekly from a pool of more than 100 flavors.

Also sold in the shops are ice cream and drinks.

The shop at 705 S. Mendenhall will have no inside seating, but two tables outside. The vast majority of orders are takeout and deliveries.

A substantial portion of sales are gifts that customers provide to their friends, loved ones and colleagues, Hiatt said.

“We love that you are buying for other people,” he said. “That’s usually what’s happening. People buy for a party or event or loved one. And there’s a sense of reward that comes with that, a good feeling that comes with that.”

Memphis-based Boyle Investment Co. developed Williamsburg Village about a half-century ago and recently started renovating and building new space there.

Crumbl will occupy 1,300 square feet in the center’s new building at the northwest corner of Mendenhall and Spottswood, said Jonathan Aur, the leasing broker for Boyle Investment Co.

The mix of food- and dining-related tenants Boyle has recruited for Williamsburg Village is “very cohesive,” Aur said.

Southall restaurant, The Hen House Wine Bar, Torchy’s Tacos and Greys cheese shop complement each other, he said.

Williamsburg Village lines both sides of South Mendenhall, and Boyle has already leased or pre-leased 90% of the five buildings comprising Phase I, or the west side.

That west side is composed of a line of five buildings totaling 22,000 square feet.