took to-go orders online since customers couldn’t come inside the store. They needed more equipment, like a much larger commercial mixing bowl. But equipment was trapped in a logistics quag- mire, likely on a container ship in the middle of the ocean. They also had a hard time get- ting ingredients. They tried to have a special Cookie of the Week, but they never knew what ingredients would be available. “We had to be very lean and flexible be- cause so much was unknown,” Marissa says. “And that has been going on for two years. It’s been the whole time we’ve been in busi- ness. We’ve been having to make these con- stant changes.” One study in the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy showed that “the number of active business owners in the United States plummeted by 3.3 million or 22% over the crucial two-month window from February to April 2020. The drop in ac- tive business owners was the largest on re- cord, and losses to business activity were felt across nearly all industries.” African-American-owned businesses were hit with a 41% drop in business activity, Asians saw a 26% drop and Hispanics 32%. “And then Oprah came,” Marissa says as she smacks her hands together, thrusting one skyward to illustrate how business took off. The media empress put Cookie Society on her list of favorite things in 2020. “I felt like I was being chased, like I was Pac-Man.” While it was a wonderful problem to have, the increased demand meant the Al- lens needed more of everything they’d al- ready been struggling to rein in: labor, ingredients, time and supplies. Two years later, the Allens are baking more cookies than they ever dreamed, about 2,500 a day. They’ve opened another store in Addison, which was delayed by months as an electrical component for their kitchen sat on a container ship. But they let go of any preconceived ideas about how business was supposed to be. Jeff describes it as being on a treadmill when you can barely keep your legs under you (as a lineman in the NFL, probably something he’d had a little experience with). At the mention of the iconic sound Pac- Man makes when he dies, Marissa laughs and says, “I’ve had a couple of those mo- ments, but I have a couple of lives left.” Charles Haseman, who teaches at the Cen- ter for Retail Innovation and Strategic Ex- cellence at the University of Texas at Dallas, says companies had to be judicious in how they spent money. “It’s how we deal with the hand that’s T been dealt us,” Haseman says of adapting during COVID and since. “Those who are imaginative, innovative, willing to scrape the bottom of the barrel and make those pennies go further … are going to be successful.” When talking about the challenges the business went through the past two years, Jeff Allen says, “That’s entrepreneurship,” as though the challenges were opportunities rather than hardships. From her job as chief public affairs offi- cer for the Texas Restaurant Association, he National Restaurant Association estimates that more than 90,000 res- taurants closed during the pandemic. Nathan Hunsinger Above: Cookie Society’s store; Right: Sugar cookies Kelsey Erickson Streufert saw an unprecedented wave of innovation within the food and beverage industry triggered by the pandemic. That innovation has stuck for many, “creating lasting opportunity for restau- rants,” Streufert said. Bui and Cheng opened Krio in March 2020 and had to navigate in a time of un- certainty. “It’s challenging when you’re expecting revenue to come in and there are salaries to pay,” Bui says, “invest- ing tens of thousands of dollars in inven- tory and employees who are depending on us to live.” They focused on the apartments that sur- rounded their restaurant, full of residents who couldn’t go out at the time. They of- fered direct delivery, taking orders over the phone and leaving bags of food by doors. “The biggest thing we did to survive was to- go orders and delivery,” Bui says. Then in the fall of 2021, Bui and Cheng opened another spot not far from Krio called Atlas, a globally inspired cocktail lounge with a small food menu. Here, they read the neighborhood. While nearby bars and res- taurants closed on Mondays, as is common, they opted to keep the lights on late on Mon- days, giving the many service industry work- ers who live in the area a place to hang out on their day off. It’s worked. Bui also focused on food costs, forgoing hyper-inflated ingredients, such as certain varieties of crab, to control prices for both the restaurant and its customers. The Allens also had to learn how to stretch and repurpose ingredients. Leftover chocolate cookie pieces were used for next month’s cookies-and-cream brownies. “Eliminating waste has been huge,” Ma- rissa says. In addition, the Allens had to get creative with another pandemic-related problem: la- bor. Before they’d even opened, Marissa had trained students seeking part-time work, but parents were rightfully worried about their kids being exposed to the virus in 2020. Nathan Hunsinger So, Marissa and Jeff hired an older crew. But as restrictions and COVID cases receded, those adults needed full-time employment. Cookie Society wasn’t even open 40 hours a week, so the business had to adjust again, expanding its hours, which worked out as business steadily picked up. “Now we have a lot of full-time workers with us, but we had to learn to do more with a smaller team at times,” Marissa says. For- tunately, they’re no longer at the store until midnight. When their daughter started playing soccer, Marissa made it a mission to get enough staff trained so that she could coach. Finally, they leveraged social media to tell their story, tempting their growing audience with cookies. Using their camera phones and a bit of tech-savvy, they never stopped selling cookies on free social media plat- forms. Haseman at UT Dallas says this time of adaption is by no means ending any time soon. “I think we’re in a state for multiple years to come where things are going to be mov- ing, the economy is up-and-down, politics is up-and-down, geopolitics is up-and-down and you’ve got the climate. There are many, many things that have a lot more impact than they did four years ago. We’re in a whole new world,” Haseman says. Then, af- ter a slight pause, he adds, “which is great!” for a bit of optimism. It’s great for those who can adapt to trends with a nimble staff, a streamlined menu and process, all while leaving room for ingenuity. It’s an entrepreneur’s dream. 12817 Preston Road, Suite 105 • 972-392-0190 indiapalacedallas.com 1919 OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK 4434 Harry Hines (near Market Center) Near Medical/Design District 214-521-0992 • OriginalMarketDiner.com dallasobserver.com dallasobserver.com | CONTENTS | UNFAIR PARK | SCHUTZE | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | MOVIES | DISH | MUSIC | CLASSIFIED | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 SEPTEMBER 15–21, 2022
