I probably should have planned something bigger to celebrate our ten-year birthday, but here we are.
Ten years ago, I took $2,500 and moved into a shared kitchen. I knew my life was changing, but I had no idea what the next ten years would look like. Before that, I was working at a job I had been doing for ten years. I didn’t love it, but for most of the time, I liked the people I worked with enough to keep a job that paid a steady paycheck. I could take a couple of weeks off every year, and that was fine. Then it just wasn’t. I became very depressed. I picked up my old favorite hobby of baking and started to make cookies, which was the very first thing I learned to make.
My grandmother, Hazel, would take me most weekends to give my mom a little relief and spend time with me. We always made Toll House cookies together. She let me (maybe even encouraged me) make a mess and learn. Whenever we opened the oven and the smell filled the air, she would exclaim, “You made those!” I would be so proud of my creation. Eventually, those weekends became fewer, but I always enjoyed making cookies. So, I picked it up again to pull myself out of a dark place.
I started making the Black & Gold cookie because I had become known as the “cookie lady” at The Fours. I was a season ticket holder and a Fours regular, so I started the season with the first recipe I wrote on my own—a dark chocolate cookie with peanut butter chips. I had been gifted some black cocoa from my cousin Annette, and I wanted to do something fun with it.
I brought the cookies for the first game of the season. The Bruins were playing in Europe, so I watched the game at The Fours over breakfast and brought the cookies to the staff and our friends. I kept bringing the cookies, and then the Bruins won it all, and I got to see a Bruins Duck Boat parade. (Let’s admit it—summer parades are so fun!)
Then, I started to think about what it would look like if I made cookies for a living.
I moved into a shared kitchen on September 7, 2014. It took me hours to make a couple of larger batches of cookies, but I did it. I started with special orders, and eventually, events and e-commerce.
In 2020, I had big plans. We were going to get our own space, preferably with a storefront. I looked at a space on March 11th, and I knew it would be awesome. I went to my car to look at the next space on my tour and got a text that one of my big events was canceled out of concern for COVID. I looked at another space, went out to my car, and received another message about a recurring order being put on hold. This happened again and again over the next two hours.
Despite all this, we figured out a way to keep going. I would just tell myself, “Don’t Crumble.” Eventually, we decided to look at a lease. We moved into 516 Gallivan Blvd in the heart of Adams Village.
Over the last ten years, we’ve done things I never could have dreamed of when I brought a 25-pound bag of flour into our old shared kitchen. We’ve sold cookies to the Bruins and the Red Sox, we’ve been at Boston Calling, and we brewed a beer with Sam Adams. We were named among the best cookies in Boston, and last year, Boston.com wrote a story about us being one of the best neighborhood businesses in the city.
I’m so proud of what we have been able to accomplish. I’m so grateful for the many friends I’ve made along the way and to everyone who has supported us over the last ten years. It hasn’t always been easy, and it hasn’t always been fun, but I have a really cool job. The big jobs we get are awesome and they pay the bills, but when someone comes in because they just need a little cookie to get through a rough day, or when a little kid comes in for their regular visit with a grandparent or uncle, that lights me up. I want you all to know that.
Thank you all for your support!
Don’t Crumble,
Heather