Cookie Rainbow opens new storefront on Blyth's main street

BY SCOTT STEPHENSON

It’s always exciting when a new business opens in downtown Blyth, and it’s extra exciting when that new business is all about cookies! That’s right, The Cookie Rainbow is open on Queen Street in the space previously occupied by Finds & Consigns Consignment Shop. 

 

Although the brick-and-mortar store is new territory for The Cookie Rainbow, you’ve probably seen their signature sugar cookies at some kind of Huron County event or another over the years - they’re the ones with the perfectly printed images on them that can look, to the uninitiated, like a real “miracle on icing”. Those surreally clear picto-cookies are made possible by “Eddie”, the edible ink printer, at the behest of Cookie Rainbow owner and head baker Charlene Hakkers.

 

But Hakkers also wants people to look beyond the surface of her classic cookies. “It’s more about the ingredients - we bake with good, fresh ingredients, and we try to get local ingredients when we can.” If thin cookies with cute images on them aren’t your thing, The Cookie Rainbow is also planning to serve cookies of another kind. “I also do big, monster cookies, and stuffed cookies with all kinds of chocolate and nuts and candies in them.” She’s also has plans to make chocolate chip cookies that she knows customers will keep coming back for, and don’t be surprised if Hakkers’ own favourite cookie, oatmeal raisin, makes an occasional appearance in the display case.

 

Hakkers has always enjoyed baking, but after a high-stress stint working in a long-term care home during the pandemic, she decided it was time to shift gears. “I kind of thought, I want to open up the kind of business that makes people happy... my mom was kind of the inspiration for all this.” 

 

Cookie Rainbow started out as a home business, but demand has risen, and Hakkers feels that it’s about time her baking business expands to include everything under the cookie rainbow. 

 

When she first began dreaming of opening her own bakeshop, Hakkers had her eye on 2025 as the potential ‘open-by’ date, which means this local entrepreneur is rather ahead of her own self-imposed schedule. She also feels that she’s lucked out with her location on Queen Street. “I thought it would be in a mall, or something like that... it took about a year and a half to find a space that suits what I need. And I think Blyth is going to be just fine - we have the theatre there, and Cowbell’s there, and we do have tourists coming, and stuff like that. But maybe our next franchise will be in a mall!”

 

Expanding into a physical storefront has inspired Hakkers to add even more cookies to her repertoire, in addition to those she already offers through her online business. She’ll also be serving coffee, and plans to someday expand more into the retail side of the cookie world by selling cutters and other baking gear. “I want it to be an experience that everybody can enjoy. You’re going to come into my store to have an experience.”

 

There is a grand opening celebration planned for August 3.