Real Good Cookies was created out of the kitchen at Brick & Barley Bar & Restaurant by Sarah Horak (Co-Owner of Brick & Barley) in Grand Forks, ND. We had been selling our popular, house made Salted Bittersweet Chocolate Chip Cookies since 2019. They are made with flours from the ND State Mill, sugars from American Crystal Sugar and other ingredients purchased almost exclusively locally. When we closed in March 2020 due to COVID, we knew we were going to have some challenging times ahead and that we would need to get creative if we wanted our business to survive. When we were able to re-open for take out only, we created a super small menu and decided to put the cookies on the menu, with the hope that this would be an easy upsell to customers and would increase each ticket price slightly. Well, we were right. Our customers started ordering more, and more, and more of the cookies. I went from making one small batch of cookies a week to twenty batches in a very short amount of time. 

We then decided to switch things up and make a couple different cookie options for people to choose from. My husband and business partner is a former amateur body builder who follows a very strict eating routine, but a few years back, on a cheat day, he wanted me to make Oreo stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies, so we thought maybe that would be a fun thing to do one week. We came up with four flavors and posted them online. They sold out within hours. So we did it the next week, and the next week, and the next week, making more and more every week. Eventually we had to use the prep kitchen at Bully Brew Coffee for a short time to use their larger mixer before we ordered our own and it arrived. 

We continued to make and sell our cookies online through pre-orders under the Brick & Barley brand until November 2020, when it became clear that these cookies needed their own branding and that's how "Real Good Cookies" was born! We continue to make and sell our cookies online and for pickup at Brick & Barley, several other wholesale accounts and through our unique cookie fundraiser campaigns.