Clash of the cookie companies

Bloomington is big enough for two cookie delivery businesses, said Geoff Stickel, general manager of Insomnia Cookies.\n“There are plenty of pizza places in town,” Stickel said. “There should be plenty of room for cookie places.”\nInsomnia Cookies opened about three weeks ago at 302 N. Walnut St., just up the road from Baked! of Bloomington’s new location at 113 W. Seventh St. Both business sell cookies that can be delivered directly to the customer’s door. Insomnia is a small company with stores on college campuses around the country, while Baked! is a student-owned, locally run business. \nStickel and Baked! owner Jared Schneider both said they didn’t know about the other’s business when they decided to open their own.\nStickel said he has been peppered with questions from people who thought he was trying to move in on Baked!’s business, but this is not the case.\n“We wish them the best,” Stickel said.\nStickel said “young kids” coming out of the bars have tried to bait him into bad-mouthing Baked! with questions about whose cookies are better. Insomnia and Baked! have swapped cookies, and Stickel said he is happy with his product.\n“I invite anybody to try ours and compare,” Stickel said.\nSchneider, an IU senior, was open about his opinion of Insomnia.\n“I know our cookies are better than theirs,” Schneider said.\nSchneider said he believes Insomnia will help Baked!’s business by spending money on advertisements to spread awareness about places that deliver cookies. People will try Insomnia and then be blown away when they try Baked!, Schneider said.\nSimilarly, Stickel said Baked! will help Insomnia’s business.\n“A few people know cookies can be ordered late at night,” Stickel said. “The more publicity, the better.”\nSchneider got the idea for Baked! when he brought a batch of his mom’s “incredible chocolate chip” cookies back to school with him and shared them with his friends. He was eating the cookies when he had a thought.\n“What if you could call a number and get hot cookies delivered to your door?” Schneider said.\nAbout one month after \ndeciding to open Baked!, \nSchneider said he was told there was a business called Insomnia Cookies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.\n“I knew when I opened I had about a year before Insomnia was coming,” Schneider said.\nInsomnia Cookies was founded in 2003 at the University of Pennsylvania, according to the Insomnia Cookies Web site.\n“It’s a corporation, and I know that’s a negative connotation for some people, but we’re a small company,” Stickel said. “We still have a family vibe.”\nStickel said he talks to his bosses daily and they have given him permission to recruit local artists to put some kind of art work inside the store. Stickel said he would prefer this instead of the typical, cliche pictures of IU that are used to demonstrate a community tie-in.\nNeither Stickel nor Schneider know if one will put the other out of business, but there is only one way to find out.\n“Customers will make their votes,” Schneider said.