The 2021 Winner for Best Bakery and Best Desserts

Written for the Fort Wayne Newspapers/Readers’ Choice Awards 2021 (one of 37).

If you’ve been in business for 31 years like sisters Theresa Kacmarik and Maureen Madden, the owners of the Cookie Cottage, you’re going to have some good stories. Like the one of how the two stayed up for three days working without sleep during their first busy Valentines Day, when they started the business. “You literally have an out of body experience,” Madden said, “you feel like you’re floating above your body working.” Eventually getting some sleep, their husbands came to help and a mattress was placed in the bathroom. “Theresa went to bed before me,” she said. On accident, “I stepped on her and she didn’t even move” because she was out.

“Our family is very devoted to our business,” Kacmarik said. “It’s mostly been family that’s been employed here from the very beginning. But, recently we’ve had people who’ve become like family.”

“We have a fantastic crew that we couldn’t do it without them,” Madden said.

There was the time they were giving a presentation for SCORE, again up all night. They loaded up. It had snowed the night before. En route, another car’s driver was pointing at their car. They rolled down their window. “You have cookies on the roof of your car,” he said. There was just enough snow on the roof, the cookies stayed there.

After a dip last year attributed to the pandemic, the Readers’ Choice recipient of the Best Bakery has been slammed. “I think people allow themselves a small luxury,” Kacmarik said. “I also think a lot people buy local. Especially with COVID-19, people are supporting local.”

The cookies are from Madden’s recipe. “I can say this because they are not my recipes, but we have a good product,” Kacmarik said. “I feel like I can say that because I’m not bragging on me, I’m bragging on her.”

31 years provide a lot of full-circle moments, like when adult customers come into the store with their little children the same age as they were when their parents brought them into the first Cookie Cottage on State Blvd.

“I can’t tell you how much we appreciate Fort Wayne and all the people who supported us over the years,” Madden said. “It’s always nice when we go somewhere… the [strong] reception we get. That’s always really very rewarding,” Kacmarik said.