MidnighTreats and its softball-sized cookies are back in the Town of Vienna.
The business will potentially roll out its large, plant-based cookies this weekend with its new bakery at 167 Glyndon Street SE, fulfilling a dream that owner and Vienna resident Johnny Nguyen had since he started baking in his mom’s house.
“It’s been my goal ever since then to really open up a real storefront here,” Nguyen said. “…I didn’t have money or anything back then to do it. So, it’s been kind of a long process, but it’s always been the goal to get back here in Vienna.”
The soft opening is tentatively planned for Saturday (Dec. 17), with a grand opening to follow once a permanent sign is in place. Vienna’s Board of Architectural Review is set to discuss a signage application for the bakery tonight.
MidnighTreats began in 2018 as a home-based delivery service, where Nguyen and a partner alternated between baking and driving the desserts out to their customers. The business started accepting pick-up orders once it moved into a commercial kitchen in Chantilly.
The first full storefront didn’t come until this past May, when it opened in Reston’s Plaza America. The company originally had a lease for Springfield’s Backlick Center, but the deal collapsed when the shopping center changed hands this spring.
“They wanted to combine two spaces, so that never went through, and that’s why I was scrambling to find a place and we ended up in Reston,” Nguyen told FFXnow by phone.
After exploring the possibility of adding a ghost kitchen in D.C., MidnighTreats landed its dreamed-of space in Vienna. The 1,000-square-foot suite was filled for over a decade by Silva’s Patisserie, a family-owned bakery that abruptly closed in 2019.
Like in Reston, the Vienna store will compete against Crumbl Cookies, which arrived at 203 Maple Avenue in 2020. While that makes Crumbl more established as a brick-and-mortar store, Nguyen notes that he built up a “small but loyal following” through deliveries.
“[The new store] puts them back in our delivery radius, so that’ll be cool to hopefully meet some of the same people we were delivering to before,” he said.
Nguyen says the type of cookies sold are also distinct. Where Crumbl goes flat and wide, MidnighTreats makes them thick and chunky, and notably, it doesn’t use any ingredients derived from animals.
According to its website, MidnighTreats aims to show that vegan desserts can be fun too. Rotating on a regular basis, the current menu includes seasonal flavors like hot cocoa and peppermint white choco, along with classic chocolate chip, cinnamon roll and funfetti cookies, and a brownie cookie called The Chocoholic.
“They’re pretty unique, and we do a lot less sugar than most places, and I think it makes the flavor pop more,” Nguyen said. “…Some [customers] have even said I wouldn’t have tried it beforehand, but I think it’s going to be a unique and different cookie experience than most.”
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