Growing late-night business feeds loyal cookie lovers

On the eve of a midterm, College senior Adam Weiss can be seen furiously hitting the books, cramming until the wee hours of the morning like hundreds of other Penn students.

But when his energy begins to wane, Weiss, unlike most students, does not reach for coffee, caffeine pills or any other traditional pick-me-up to get the boost he needs. Instead, Weiss reaches for his warm, freshly-baked Insomnia Cookies.

"Insomnia Cookies have become an integral part of my study routine," says Weiss, who regularly orders the cookies five nights per week. "I really don't think I could get through a late night without them."

Although his routine may seem fanatical, over the past year and a half, cookie aficionados like Weiss have become increasingly common, fueling the rise of Penn's student entrepreneurial phenomenon, Insomnia Cookies.

In fact, due to loyal customers like Weiss, Insomnia Cookies has become so popular that co-managers and College seniors Seth Berkowitz and Jared Barnett have recently been forced to abandon their original closet-sized kitchen and relocate to a larger Center City storefront to keep up with skyrocketing student demand.

Given the venture's recent success, it is hard to imagine that just a short time ago, Insomnia Cookies was a fledgling enterprise, hoping just to be able to survive on campus.

Working out of a tiny kitchen in his apartment, Berkowitz launched the business in the fall of 2002, offering only six varieties of cookies and running every aspect of the business alone, from taking orders to making batter to baking to delivering.

"It was really difficult at first," Berkowitz says. "I was working by myself in my 5-by-10, closet-sized kitchen with one table and a tiny fridge I had to share with nine other people."

But despite these inauspicious beginnings, Berkowitz persevered with the Insomnia Cookies idea, recognizing that the dearth of late-night food delivery options on campus -- coupled with the near-universal love for fresh baked goods -- would ensure success.

"Insomnia is a great idea because there's really nothing to get that late at night on campus," College freshman Elisheva Wexler says. "Cookies are something everyone craves at night but you can't always make at school yourself, so if it's between College Pizza and home-baked cookies, I'd definitely choose the cookies."

Beyond tapping a previously unexplored market, Insomnia Cookies' success is largely due to Berkowitz's familiarity with his customers and his ability to understand precisely what they want.

"Being a college student really lets us get inside the psyche of my market and lets us cater to what they want," Berkowitz says. "I knew I'd taken multiple trips to Wawa late at night to get cookies, so I knew Insomnia would be a hit."

In addition to relocating to a larger, more professional location that permits them to expand their baking capacity, Berkowitz and Barnett have enhanced the menu, now offering beverages and over 30 varieties of cookies and brownies. Increasing their staff to 10 employees to help meet rising demand, creating a Web site to handle Internet orders to be shipped around the country and launching their inaugural advertising campaign this past week are all additional innovations by Insomnia Cookies to guarantee even more late-night orders.

Though surprising, Berkowitz and Barnett insist that their rapid expansion has been extremely beneficial, actually easing their workload and reducing what were 15- to 16-hour shifts.

"With more customers and a bigger location, it's actually become easier," Berkowitz says. "Before we were doing all the orders, baking and delivering, but now we make more money, so we can hire people, which makes us faster and faster."

Indeed, the new location has helped to boost Insomnia Cookies' productivity tremendously, now allowing it to produce 120 cookies in seven minutes, as opposed to the 24 cookies that the company was previously producing in 12 minutes -- thereby expediting the delivery process as well.

Despite their multifaceted expansion and ever-increasing popularity, Berkowitz and Barnett are determined to maintain their original formula of homemade batter and prompt delivery of fresh cookies that are still warm upon arrival. Their commitment to satisfaction has kept customers coming back for cookies day after day.

"Ordering Insomnia Cookies only once is impossible," says College freshman and loyal "Insomniac" Chelsea Albright. "Once you've started ordering, it's hard to stop."

Dedicated, satisfied customers have not only ensured continued success on the Penn campus, but have also provided the impetus for continued expansion of Insomnia Cookies. Berkowitz and Barnett hope to establish branches of their business on campuses such as Michigan, Cornell and Rutgers following their graduation this spring.

"Next year, we'll be able to commit 100 percent of our time to Insomnia," Berkowitz says. "We're going to try to start Insomnias at two or three other colleges next year, and with a little work, I don't see why Insomnia can't be just as successful on other campuses around the country."

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