Grand Forks-based Real Good Cookies to cease operations in June – Grand Forks Herald

GRAND FORKS – A Grand Forks business that grew through the COVID-19 pandemic will close this summer

Real Good Cookies will cease operations in June, but will continue to fulfill wholesale contracts and special orders and accept gift certificates while supplies last. The company made the announcement via its Facebook page. According to owner Sarah Horak, the last deliveries will be June 18 or 25.

According to Horak, the decision was due to the inability to find a way to expand and make the business operations more sustainable.

“The business itself has been great for those four years,” Horak said. “Right now, I’m working out of a commercial kitchen on the second floor downtown. So far, it’s going great, but it’s on the second floor and there’s no elevator, so we have to lug thousands of pounds of ingredients up and down.”

The premises were not suitable for the company’s expansion, said Horak. She looked for other options, but the finances were never right.

“I had blueprints, a contractor and a designer and everything was in place, but at the end of the day, the numbers just didn’t make sense for this expansion,” Horak said. “It also just didn’t make sense to keep doing it the way it has for the last four years in this inefficient space where the growth potential just isn’t there.”

Real Good Cookies started when Horak — co-owner of downtown stores Level 10, Brick and Barley and O’Really’s — added cookies to her menu for takeout orders during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People just went crazy for the cookies,” Horak previously told the Herald. “They weren’t even ordering other food items. They were just calling and asking, ‘Can I have a dozen of these cookies?'”

No changes are expected in Horak’s other business activities. The closure only affects the Real Good Cookies business.

“The business was fun. I never thought I would ever do this,” Horak said. “But it was just time to stop. It makes me sad, but I really went through every option that came to mind and it just wasn’t a smart financial move for me at that point.”

Voigt reports on city government in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks.