1.5 Million Cookies and a Viral Diet Coke: JD’s Chippery Is a Growing Family Legacy

On many mornings, there’s a line waiting outside JD’s Chippery in Snider Plaza before they even open. Some are there for the always warm and gooey semi-sweet chocolate chip cookie — the shop’s bestseller — or perhaps the muffins, including the glorious pumpkin chocolate chip or savory ham and cheese. Sometimes it’s for four 32-ounce Diet Cokes, the standard order for one customer, and a topic we’ll get to in just a bit. But for many, this small cookie shop that evokes a Keebler Elf treehouse vibe is a ritual.

The shop was originally opened in 1983 by John and Julie Broad. The latter developed all the recipes and, for decades, walked to work from their nearby house at 3 a.m. every morning. She knew every person who walked into the store. But while the shop is steeped in history, its future belongs to their daughter, Amy Broad.

From Auction House to Cookie House

Amy Broad was raised at JD’s Chippery. She took naps under the counters. But after college, she didn’t have her sights set on taking on the family business.

“I went to Christie’s [Auction House] in New York,” she says about a dream sparked by reading romance novels in her teens that were often set in auction houses. She was determined to make that fiction her life’s work.

“I called the lady [at Christie’s] so many times until she finally said, ‘Come in, I’ll give you a job, stop calling me,'” Amy says. “So I just went to work there, even though she said there’s nothing open. One day, she just said, ‘I’ll make a job for you. Just stop calling.'”

That led her to auction houses in Dubai, Singapore, and Hong Kong. She also started a vintage Louis Vuitton truck company and a media company. She even launched a baby food business in Hong Kong. Needless to say, she was always an entrepreneur.

After her dad suffered a stroke, Amy moved back home to help her parents, who were ready to retire.

“They really didn’t want to sell it; that was just my soft push,” she says. “I spent a year really getting to know the business. I’d already worked here; it’s not like I didn’t know it, but I spent a year basically familiarizing myself with the ins and outs of it.”

Her dad knew the business was in good hands, and her parents got to officially retire and spend time together.

“He loved that,” she says of her dad. “They got to spend a lot of really good time together three years before he passed away, so it’s great.”

25-Pound Box of Chocolate

Even after a life surrounded by batches of cookie dough, Amy still likes sweets. Except for a stretch when she swore off chocolate.

“I didn’t eat chocolate until I was about 18 years old, though,” she says, referring to the time they were looking for a new chocolate supplier. “I remember testing 25-pound boxes of chocolate for two months, and I think I just never wanted to eat chocolate again after that.”

But now, she’s proud of the legacy they have created and makes cookies she’s proud to sell and consume.

“I think the six ingredients — if you wrote them down — you’d recognize them and have them all in your pantry. So, if you’re going to eat a cookie, eat this cookie,” she says.

More than a dozen types of cookies are baked fresh throughout the day. They also offer seasonal specialties (iced pumpkin cookies) and personalized cookie cakes, plus more than a dozen varieties of muffins.

But maintaining a certain quality comes at a price, especially when baking 1.5 million cookies a year.

“The cost of chocolate has gone up 30 to 40%. So, we’ve tried to keep our prices as reasonable as possible,” she says, adding that over three years she’s had to raise prices 50 to 60 cents, which is directly related to the cost of chocolate and labor.

“Our labor costs are through the roof,” she adds. “People want to make at least $16 an hour now, and we never used to take tips either, but I had to change that. It was something I didn’t really want to do, but every other business in town allows their employees tips, and I wouldn’t be able to attract the caliber of employees that I wanted if I didn’t allow tips.”

Viral Diet Coke and Expansion

JD’s not only has a committed cookie following, but its Diet Coke does, too. Broad uses a unique formula, much like McDonald’s. Recently, an SMU student ordered one with fresh-squeezed lime added, which went viral.

“I think 500,000 people might’ve watched her video and then all of a sudden people started walking in and they’d look a little bit lost. I was like, ‘Are you here for a Diet Coke?’ They’d say, ‘How did you know?'”

If you could pass a blind-taste test pinpointing different vehicles of Diet Coke (can, bottle, McDonald’s, etc.), this is worth tracking down. The mixture is the same as McDonald’s, with the bonus of pellet ice. Add fresh lime if that’s your thing. If you’re truly a fan, get one of each and allow yourself time to reflect and casually sip both over an evening, like it’s a fine wine.

JD’s has recently expanded the empire to a new store at Preston and Royal (northeast corner at 6025 Royal Lane), where you can sit down, as opposed to the grab-and-go format at Snider Plaza. This store offers all of the same items as the Snider Plaza location, but also has ice cream. Which means, you can get an ice cream sandwich with fresh-baked cookies for that Goldilocks belt of where hot meets cold. And an amazing Diet Coke. Oooph …