Warm cookies and cold milk: The Cookie Guy always delivers

The Cookie Guy says it isn’t about cookies.

Yes, Tim Smith is proud of his artisan chocolate chip, chewy snickerdoodle and other cookies. But to Smith, “It’s the experience. I hand you cold milk and warm cookies.”

He does it while dressed in a burgundy chef’s jacket, with a personalized, memorized message for whoever’s on the receiving end. The cookies are delivered in an insulated carrying case, within an hour of being pulled from the oven, to make sure they’re still warm.

“People don’t send us to people they don’t care for,” Smith says. “We’re there to say you matter to somebody.”

Smith started The Cookie Guy five years ago. Being a small-business owner is his fourth career.

A Wichita native, he served in the Navy during the first Gulf War, worked in IT for 20 years, then managed some Panera Bread operations in Seattle after earning a culinary degree. He moved back to take care of his parents, and that’s where the idea for his business came from: He brought home-baked cookies to his folks’ doctors as a thank-you, and their reaction convinced him that a business opportunity existed.

“After a couple of visits, they’d see me coming and say, ‘Hey, it’s the cookie guy.’ It wasn’t so much about the cookie as why they were being given.”

Smith began baking cookies out of his home in Mulvane. When he and his wife moved to Wichita, he found a commercial space to work in. He uses it only for production, saying he has no desire to operate as a retailer open to the public.

He produces about 20 varieties of cookies, split between traditional, specialty and gluten-free menus. Although he’s been able to use his creativity on the specialty menu – with flavors like Sweet Indian Chai and Caramel Apple Pie – he says the traditional varieties are the best sellers.

For St. Patrick’s Day last year, for instance, he produced a cookie called the Irish Pub featuring a reduction of Guinness beer.

“People loved them but nobody bought them. They buy what they know.”

Smith also offers “brookies,” which are cookies topped with a brownie, and a cookie tower for weddings and other occasions. Prices start at $20 per dozen, plus a $5 delivery fee and an additional $5.50 for a half-gallon of milk and cups.

Smith has delivered flowers and sung “Happy Birthday” – “I was in the Navy choir,” he said – to cookie recipients, taken cookies to an expectant mother who promptly went into labor, and delivered to hospice patients and their families.

But about 80 percent of his sales are business-related, he said. One car dealership had him deliver a dozen to every new car buyer for two years.

He has delivered cookies on a regular basis to banks, high-tech outfits, nonprofits and construction firms.

Sometimes people hire him as a way to get their foot in the door of a business deal.

“I can get past gatekeepers in ways most people can’t,” Smith said. “Everyone from janitors to CEOs gets stupid when there’s cookies and milk.”

He’ll even give customers a post-delivery report on what kind of impression the cookies seemed to make.

Only occasionally does someone order cookies just for themselves, he said.

“They’re like, ‘Don’t worry about the (chef’s) coat. Just get them to me.’ ”

This story was originally published March 8, 2017 at 2:23 PM with the headline "Warm cookies and cold milk: The Cookie Guy always delivers."