Kent Andersen, franchise owner of the newly opened Crumbl Cookies in the Vacaville Commons, knows exactly how his cookies crumble.  That’s because the cookie company, now found in 36 states, still follows the tenets of a family-run business.  “We’re about bringing the best cookies you can make to friends and family and enjoying them all together,” Andersen said. The bakeries prepare the cookies in front of the customer, applying the finishing touches only after the customer has ordered, and never serve a cookie that has been on the shelf for longer than two hours.  “If cookies do last that long, we donate them to charity,” Andersen said.  But the most compelling feature of the cookie confectionery is its rotating menu.  Every Monday the offerings change, and except for the famous Milk Chocolate Chip Cookie, which is sold every week, customers will find 4 new flavors on the menu.  (There is breaking news on this front, however.  Andersen said the Crumbl Pink Sugar Cookie will soon be offered weekly again—but he was not at liberty to reveal when.) Also, each bakery offers its own “mystery cookie,” once a month, picked by the franchise owner and staff.  “We have more than 200 flavors, so there’s always a reason to come back to Crumbl,” he said.  

Andersen’s personal story is interesting.   A graduate of Brigham Young University-Idaho, he was originally a software developer, specializing in mobile apps.  He has coded for companies such as USAA, Ancestry.com and the virtual reality provider The Void.  But his heart was always in start-ups.  “I love building things and the feeling of creating,” he said.  Eventually Andersen began his own mobile development company, Shift Consulting, which he stills run to this day. “I have several mobile developers, mostly in Europe, working with companies that don’t have their own developers yet.  The company mostly runs itself now, so I can focus on Crumbl.”

A few years ago, Andersen, a family man first and foremost, was tiring of the transitory nature of the tech world and was looking for another entrepreneurial adventure. In one of those quirky twists of fate that some call serendipity, the guy sitting next to him at his last I.T. job, Bryce Redd, ended up becoming the Chief Technology Officer at Crumbl and opened a ground floor door for Andersen to walk through.  He did just that and brought his father along with him.  In 2019, father and son opened their first store in Medford, Oregon. Andersen said it was very nerve wracking because Crumbl was still in its infancy, and they weren’t sure how the cookie franchise would be received outside of Utah where it originated. “We unlocked our doors, and it was like a freight train hit us.  I kid you not, we had the entire lobby full, shoulder-to-shoulder, from 8 A.M. to midnight.  It was just packed.”   The cookie confectioners now own six stores, the most recent being the store in Vacaville Commons.  

Like the Medford store, the Commons’ Crumbl Cookies recently opened to great fanfare–just in time for the shopping center’s 30th birthday–and Andersen says it has quickly become one of his top performing stores. He found the location while on a road trip down the I-80 corridor looking for likely locales to expand and says he has fallen in love with the community.  “We were driving through Vacaville, and I said ‘Right here! This is the best spot!’ It’s one of those things where you get a feel for a town and you’re like, this is a good place to have a Crumbl.” 

Guess you could say that makes Kent Andersen one smart cookie.