Five years ago, a visit to an edible cookie dough shop on an out-of-state trip inspired Shannon Heupel and Katelyn Naghtin to start The Dough Shoppe and bring the treat to Northeast Wisconsin.
Naghtin said in their five years since becoming small business owners, The Dough Shoppe has grown significantly.
“One thing led to another and now we are wrapping up our fifth year as small business owners,” she said. “The Dough Shoppe has grown from just scooping cookie dough for walk-in customers into offering catering for private and corporate events, wholesale and fundraiser options. We also have added a dough cart, trailer and truck to our store, allowing us to book events all summer long including the Farmers’ Market on Broadway.”
The Dough Shoppe, Naghtin said, was named and built to reflect the vintage vision they had when they were first starting out.
“We chose the name The Dough Shoppe because of its simplicity as well as adding an old-fashioned flair to it by spelling shop as shoppe,” she said. “When envisioning and creating our name and logo a vintage feel was on our minds such as brick buildings and black and white striped awnings over the door and we have incorporated as much of that into our business as we could from our branding to the way we spelt our business’s name.”
Although The Dough Shoppe was the first store of its kind to open in Wisconsin, the business still has to compete with grocery store brands of edible cookie dough. Naghtin said The Dough Shoppe stands apart because they use real ingredients to make sure customers get that homemade cookie dough taste.
“We serve edible cookie dough made from scratch and with pasteurized eggs and heat treated flour,” she said. “Nowadays there are lots of edible cookie dough options lining the grocery store shelves but not all of them keep eggs in the recipe – we chose to so we weren’t compromising the taste of real cookie dough for something that could be made cheaper by substituting out the eggs. You won’t get the same homemade cookie dough taste from a package at a store that you will from our family-run kitchen and store.”
Naghtin said The Dough Shoppe offers edible cookie dough in a variety of flavors and forms.
“We offer classic cookie dough scoops, half baked cookie dough pies topped with ice cream, cookie dough blended into milk shakes, and cookie dough sandwiched between oreo wafers,” she said. “There is a form of cookie dough for everyone to enjoy and our numerous flavors help make that possible including allergen friendly options like gluten-free, vegan and keto.”
All of those offerings and more can be found from The Dough Shoppe at the Farmers’ Market on Broadway on Wednesdays nights — a market Naghtin said provides an opportunity to get support from the community and give support back to the community in return.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to come out weekly and serve customers in an environment outside of our storefronts, and to see so many people showing up to support each one of us is heartwarming,” she said. “One of our goals and a huge part of our mission at The Dough Shoppe is to #bethegood within our community and we are so thankful for every customer that walks through our doors or comes out to our food truck events to support us and that mission. One of the main ways we do that, aside from serving delicious edible cookie dough, is by donating 100% of our tips to a different non profit every month. The Farmers’ Market has allowed us to do that tenfold since we started attending in 2018 so we want to take this opportunity to thank not only everyone who helps keep the market running but also everyone who has made the continuation of our business possible, for every cookie dough purchase made and every tip that has ever been donated. Thank you Green Bay for #beingthegood with us.”