The smell of freshly baked cookies fills the air every time someone enters the infamous, Grandma’s Cookies on Main Street in Saint Charles. Straight ahead, a wide variety of cookies are served. From original chocolate chip cookies to snickerdoodle, there are many flavors to choose from.
To the right, a U.S. map that is available for any customer that walks in, hangs with hundreds of pins, covering all 50 states. The pins represent what state each customer is from. From Alaska to Maine, people from all over the country come to taste these popular cookies.
“It was just really neat to hear about the people and where they came from,” owner Theresa Ruvio said. “So my brother and I decided it would be neat to put a map on the wall and to let people put pins on the map so we could see where people travelled from.”
In 1976, Charlotte Thompson achieved something that she had been dreaming about her whole life, her own dress store where she later later slowly transitioned into making it into just a cookie store.Thompson made dresses for women, men and children, and always had a jar of cookies to keep children occupied while they waited for their mothers. As soon as everyone started to also eat the cookies, she started charging a quarter for each. Later on, Thompson thought that selling cookies, not as a business, but as an extra would benefit her. From then on, Thompson focused on selling cookies, instead of dresses.
“I think that it is cool how she changed the shop,” sophomore Eric Dickherber, nephew of the owner said. “I am very happy that it happened because now I get to eat a lot of cookies whenever I want.”
An average of 150 dozen batches of cookies are made daily at Grandma’s Cookies, located at the center of the Saint Charles Main Street, across from the gazebo, on 401 S Main Street each day. A family recipe that has been used for years is still utilized every morning at eight to make all of the desserts. They are mixed, trayed, scooped out, put on the tray and placed into the oven. After they finished baking, they get put out after cooling down and sold to the customers.
“We have chocolate chip, chocolate chip peanut butter, peanut butter, oatmeal raisin,coconut, sugar sprinkle, and snickerdoodle that we sell,” Fox said. “But the chocolate chip sells the most because everyone is more familiarized with it,” worker at Grandma’s Cookies, Arielle Fox said.
According to the workers and owner, having a good relationship with the customers is very crucial. The work environment is different in many ways because of the thought that always goes into the cookies and the satisfaction of the customers. Because Grandma’s Cookies is a local, family owned business, the experiences and relationships that the customers have with the workers is different than many other shops because the bond will remain with them.
“We care about what the product is like, how it turns out and how people respond to it. If people aren’t happy then we really try to change it,” Ruvio said.
Although the store is unique because of it’s small unity, but also because the cookie itself and environment of the business. For many years, the well known cookies have been an often bought good to any tourists who came to Saint Charles. Being voted the Number One Speciality Shop and the Number One Dessert in the Saint Charles county by the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, many say that this handmade dessert is a must.
“I think the cookies taste really good,” Dickherber said. “They have a taste that no other cookies have and I enjoy them more knowing that they were made by family.”
