Rick Diamond spent most of his career working as an accountant but, like so many others, decided he wanted to be his own boss after Covid hit and started thinking about franchising. Coincidentally, Emily was visiting family in Utah, which gave her the opportunity to visit Crumbl's very first store – a log cabin-like location that opened in Logan, Utah, in 2017.
She loved everything about the concept – the smell, the look, the product. Stores are closed on Sundays, which aligned with their values. They checked out an open location closer to home, in Louisville, Kentucky, and realized it was exactly what they wanted to pursue.
“It wasn’t a hard sell,” Rick said during a recent interview.
They set up a call with corporate and were approved for a store and, just this week, opened their third Crumbl location in their home market. Their experience with the concept has been “really positive, which is why we went for a third.” Notably, their experience also coincides with the company’s meteoric growth trajectory. Crumbl more than doubled its unit count from 2021 to 2022 and now counts nearly 1,000 shops, while its sales jumped more than 2.5 times to $985 million during that same timeframe.
For the Diamonds, their two existing locations are in the top 25% and 15% of the system’s overall sales, respectively, and they’re confident the third will be just as successful. It’s located next to a Kroger grocery store, which is why they are bullish about this particular unit.
“We tend to do better when we’re located next to a weekly shopping venue. We try to get to locations near where people go for weekly occasions because then we become an added stop,” Rick said. “And Louisville has been very good to us.”
That said, the success they’ve found has been somewhat surprising.
“You don’t think people eat cookies every day, but we’ve learned that people eat cookies every day,” Rick said. “It turns out cookies are enough to bring people in frequently.”
Indeed, Crumbl’s menu consists of just cookies (and Crumbl water), with rotating flavors changing each week, from classics like chocolate chip to innovations like the honey cake with Teddy Grahams or the Almost Everything Bagel cookie. There is also a mystery flavor.
The concept hits on a broader trend toward indulgence, but Crumbl’s marketing prowess sets the company apart. Consider, for instance, the company’s 7.3 million followers on TikTok compared to Taco Bell’s 3 million followers (and Taco Bell isn’t exactly a marketing lightweight). Of course, it helps that Crumbl has a visual product to work with and builds up anticipation of its new flavors each week. Last year, the company went a step further and launched a “Taste Weekly Subscription” service with both weekly and monthly options.
“I think there is a draw to this, kind of like a Disney World effect. It’s visual and the company is really good at getting people’s interest through social media,” Rick said.
The brand’s consistency is also appealing, he adds. Each location has to look exactly as the concept was designed by its architects – down to the length of the counter lip. Each franchisee works with the same vendors and features the same rotating menu and has the same training process. That “constant training process” is critical, by the way, to ensure cookies fit into the signature pink boxes.
“The company is all about the little details, but that is what caught our attention,” Rick said. “They want every customer to walk into every Crumbl and know exactly what to do and what to expect.”
The Diamonds newest store opened on Valentine’s Day, which is by far the biggest sales day at their existing locations. Last year, they sold a week’s worth of cookies on Valentine’s Day.
Contact Alicia Kelso at [email protected]
