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Date: 7/31/2019
AGAWAM – Sheila Coon started Hot Oven Cookies as a single-mom looking for a way to spend time with her kids, and still make a living. Now, she’s not only living her dream, but growing it.
Coon’s love of baking was fostered from a young age. She told Reminder Publishing her family was centered around cooking, with her grandmother being an excellent cook. Her mother also owned a small cookie business as she was growing up, so she learned the joy cookies brought to people.
“I don’t know who was happier, my mom making them or the customer getting the cookie,” she said.
Despite getting a bachelor’s degree in paralegal studies, Coon said, she got the itch for baking. Instead of sitting for a test that would get her into law school, Coon went to Holyoke Community College and enrolled in their culinary program.
“That’s the happiest I’ve ever been,” she said.
Now, with Hot Oven Cookies, Coon offers customers a taste of cookies with gourmet flavors. Overall, she told Reminder Publishing, she has made around 500 uniquely flavored cookies. Each week, customers can buy four flavors that have been made previously, and four brand-new cookie flavors.
What started as a cookie delivery service will soon be a business with not one, but two store fronts, one in Springfield and one in Agawam.
Coon told Reminder Publishing, after realizing the delivery service was a success, they moved on to purchasing and selling from a cookie food truck. Much like the delivery service, the food truck proved successful, leading to them opening their first store front in 2018.
The storefront on 1597 Main St. in Springfield opened Nov. 25, 2018. Now, less than a year later, they have big plans to expand their business, starting with opening an Agawam location in September.
The new storefront will be located in a plaza on 369 Walnut St., next to E.B.’s Restaurant. The new store will, of course, serve the cookies people have come to expect and love from them. However, Coon told Reminder Publishing the store will also serve as a test site for selling frozen dough.
Eventually, after testing the sales at the Agawam location, Coon is hoping to offer a cookie subscription box that would ship customers across the country frozen dough. Ideally, Coon said the subscription service would offer customers a new flavor of cookie each month.
The plans to grow the business don’t stop there, though. Coon is currently in the process of applying to a new kiosk program at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut, and wants to open a total of three new locations by the end of 2020.
As for potential locations for future sites Coon, being a Hampshire County native herself, said she wants to open a shop in Northampton and near the Western New England University campus in Springfield. She said her and her husband are also considering potential locations in Westfield and Easthampton. Eventually she said they also want to branch out to parts of Northern Connecticut and even Boston.
But it doesn’t seem that Coon will be out of cookie-selling ideas anytime soon, as she plans to franchise in the coming years and even has an idea for an indoor cookie cart.
Armed with ambitious goals and a tray full of desserts, Coon plans to share the joy with people across the country one cookie at a time.