Everyone’s Been Talking About Carol’s
Even though Carol started her cookie empire baking in her home kitchen and selling to a local grocer, word of her one-of-a-kind, 6-oz cookies got out. It didn’t take long that the nation took note. Within a couple of years of selling her handmade cookies, Carol’s Cookies was featured in the December 19, 1983 People Magazine article, “Long Live These Chocolate Chips” by Lousie Lague.
That article helped Carol’s grow on a national level, but also highlighted local business talent in Chicagoland. The Chicago Tribune “Food Guide” in February, 1984 called Carol “Bubbly and gregarious” as they detailed her history from the first grocery store that stocked her gourmet cookies, Sunset Foods of Highland Park, to baking for Neiman-Marcus. Carol even taught an adult education class called “In and Out of the Cookie Jar” at a private school in Chicago!
In the years that followed, she was featured several times in North Shore Magazine, Where! Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, Today’s Chicago Woman, and Midwest Living.
In March, 2003, Carol’s Cookies made Food & Wine Magazine’s national list of “America’s 75 best food buys”.
Her next national publicity came on the “Food Network” in early 2004 on the show, Food Finds. You can watch the entire clip here in all its retro glory. At that time, the program was impressed with the 500 dozen cookies a week we were shipping. Who would believe that 20 years later we would be shipping approximately 15,000 dozen of our handmade cookies each week?! Of course, this increase in sales was helped with the ability to buy cookies online.
In 2007, the Chicago Tribune “Qurious Consumer” reviewed the recently debuted Toffee Chocolate Crunch Cookie and deemed it, “very, very dangerous.” Seems no one heeded the warning, and it is now one of our most popular flavors.
Carol’s Cookies was then featured in The Highland Park Landmark back in May 15, 2014 written by Alan P. Henry. At this point, Carol’s had expanded to 13 different cookie flavors and was now making and selling mini versions of her homemade, gourmet cookies.
Carol’s Cookies celebrated 40 years of sweet business in 2021 and was featured across all of the major Chicago networks: ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and The CW. The entire bakery was thrilled that their gourmet cookie gifts were being celebrated across Chicagoland.
Just last year, The Cooking Channel showcased Carol’s story and the Carol’s Cookies Bakery in a new show, Snack on This hosted by Kalen Allen. You can watch this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq0ZZhM7fAk
You’ve heard about them, read about them, and we hope you’ve been able to try them. If you haven’t yet- now’s the time! The 6-oz original handmade cookies are sold at high-end grocers across the US, and the popular mini cookies are sold at Whole Foods Markets nationally. And, people everywhere can order cookies to buy online! Whether you want to send birthday cookies, thank you cookies, or a corporate cookie gift box – it’s easy at www.CarolsCookies.com
We know what the local and national media outlets think – now we want to know what you think! You can rate all of our cookie flavors out of 1-5 stars right here: https://carolscookies.com/flavors/