Dining Out: Between Crumbl Cookies and Courage Cookies, it's not even close

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Courage Cookies Ottawa

1130 Wellington St. W., suite 4, couragecookies.ca

Open: Tuesday to Friday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday, Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Monday
Prices: $3.40 per cookie, with discounts for a half-dozen or dozen

Crumbl — Nepean

1377 Woodroffe Ave Unit C, 613-699-4565, crumblcookies.ca

Open: Monday to Thursday 8 a.m. to midnight, Friday, Saturday 8 a.m. to midnight, closed Sunday
Prices: $5.99 per cookie, $22.99 for four, $29.99 for six, $53.99 for 12, three mini-cookies $9.99, six mini-cookies $19.99, $12 mini-cookies $36.99

Crumbl Cookies, the U.S. food-franchise juggernaut that has opened more than 1,000 locations since 2017, has now arrived in Ottawa. But if you’re determined to sample its sugary wares, the first question you must ask isn’t “Do I want Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip or Salted Caramel Cheesecake?” Instead, consider “How long am I willing to spend in line?”

Since late June, when Crumbl – Nepean opened at College Square Mall, thousands of sweet-toothed cookie lovers have queued up for its much-touted treats. There’s always a line-up, with peak wait times of as long as three hours on weekends and evenings, says co-owner Murad Al Hasan.

A few days ago, I lined up shortly after Crumbl’s 8 a.m. opening and stood behind dozens of people, almost all much younger than myself, who apparently wanted to start their day off with a cookie, or, more likely, a bright pink box of cookies.

The signature packaging, Crumbl’s website says, is “recognizable and Instagrammable, perfect for posting that sweet Crumbl review, boomerang, or photo on social media!”

I see now that Crumbl has 8.1 million TikTok followers and five million Instagram followers. The Crumbl Cookies Canada account, which covers the dozen-plus Canadian locations that have opened in the last year or so, has about 48,400 TikTok followers and 100,000 Instagram followers. I’m no marketing pro, but surely there’s a connection between such social-media popularity and the epic wait times at every new Crumbl location.

It took 45 minutes of queuing before I could place my order. I brought home a dozen nicely boxed mini-cookies ($36.99), which were in fact the size of cookies I might typically bake for myself. I also bought a four-pack of Crumbl’s regular-sized cookies ($22.99), each practically the size of my face.

With help from family and colleagues, I sampled the six flavours available last week. (Types of cookies rotate on and off the lineup, no doubt revving up that fear-of-missing-out feeling among Crumbl devotees.) Our consensus probably set us apart from the TikTok-watching, Gen Z cohort that likely accounts for the franchise’s meteoric rise. The cookies, while freshly made and massive, were also mostly lopsidedly sugary and softly cakey or doughy. I wouldn’t call them bad cookies, but I would also say they were not that interesting after a bite or two.

Crumbl’s semi-sweet chocolate chunk cookie, perked by a bit of flaky salt, was probably my favourite. The cake batter cookie topped with cake batter cream cheese frosting and mini-cookie cake batter balls was better than I expected.

But my definition of a delicious cookie, never mind one worth waiting an hour or more for, demands a little more. I prefer cookies that aren’t simply sugar bombs, which have more going on, including more textures, flavours and ingredients.

I’m much more fond of the cookies from the Courage Cookies location in Hintonburg, which opened in late May at the Wellington Street West address where Sharpfle Waffle had been before it reluctantly left in the spring of 2023. (The good news for Sharpfle Waffle’s fans is that it moved to Hinchey Street and has since opened a second location on York Street.)

Ottawa’s Courage Cookie store is the brand’s third location, following two that opened in Toronto after founder Ian Moores began making cookies when the pandemic started four years ago.

Moores was visiting his Ottawa location this week and I asked him if people have been lining up for his cookies in Hintonburg. “Not as of yet,” he said. That’s what happens, or doesn’t happen, when you only have 10,500 Instagram followers and no new posts since May 9, I guess.

Courage cookies were on the whole more interesting in terms of tastes and textures, frequently crisp-chewy and sometimes buttery enough to require napkins. That buttery residue on fingers and lips is the only downside I can think of as far as Courage cookies go.

When I visited a few days ago, there were 17 kinds of cookies, from Snickerdoodle to Birthday Cake to Gluten-free Brown Butter Chocochunk to Vegan Chocochunk, most going for $3.40 each, $20 for six or $37.50 for a dozen.

Of them, the “Angel Pillow” butter cookie was perfectly simple and simply perfect. The same went for the classic oatmeal cookie. The so-called “Crispy Boi” chocolate chip cookie is understandably a best-seller, thanks to its crisp edges, dark chocolate chunks and flakes of salt. The nutty brown butter cookies, one with Rice Krispies and the other with dark chocolate, were decadently good.

While you might feel self-indulgent while chomping into a Courage cookie, a small part of your purchase is altruistic. Since Courage opened it has given part of its revenues to charities. It has given $100,000 so far, said Moores. This year it is giving 2.5 per cent of overall revenues to charities, and this month the beneficiary of its sales in both Ottawa and Toronto is the Parkdale Food Centre around the corner from the Hintonburg location.

To me, the difference between Crumbl, which sells thousands of cookies daily in Ottawa, and Courage, which sells between 150 and 800 cookies, isn’t even close. Don’t let those numbers persuade you which store’s cookies rule. Not that I want to discourage the folks lining up for Crumbl cookies, as their choice just means more Courage cookies, without any lineups, for the rest of us.

phum@postmedia.com

Where do you go for cookies? Leave your suggestions in the comments below.

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