Great One Cookie Company in Dallas celebrates first anniversary

Their year included the Oscars, Oprah, and Tony Romo's wedding.

Photo by Rich Vana

The secret ingredient at Great One Cookie Company isn’t really an ingredient at all. Just one year into their operation near Knox Avenue, dozens of fans of Pam Denesuk’s products have already asked, pleaded, and begged for the secret, special additional thing that goes into her cookies that makes them so good. They have all left empty-handed, though perhaps a little wiser after Denesuk’s response.

“It’s not about one thing,” she says. “It’s about doing everything correctly, from start to finish. It’s about using great quality ingredients and it’s about doing all of the little things the right way.”

For Denesuk and her year-old company, doing things the right way seems to be working pretty well.

Great One Cookie Company (“Because a cookie should be great, and you should only need one,” Denesuk says) celebrated their first-year anniversary on March 18, a year that held more travel, more events, and more celebration than many single-shop cookie companies will experience in their existence. A trip to the Academy Awards, a visit from Oprah, and even a chance to cater cookies at a Dallas Cowboys quarterback’s wedding can all be found in their year’s log, and it’s merely the beginning for a business that Denesuk started as a pursuit of passion.

“This has been about me following my dream. I was a lawyer for 20 years, where I practiced tax law. My children are grown now, and just decided that I wanted to follow a dream and open this cookie shop,” she says. “I started baking and cooking as a child with my Sicilian grandmother and I learned how to make just absolutely amazing Italian cookies – all the traditional Italian cookies that we sell in the shop during the holidays. I believe if you’re going to eat a cookie, you should never be disappointed, ever – if you’re going to invest in a cookie or a treat, it should be great and you should only need to eat one. That’s how Great One Cookie Company was founded.”

How Great One Cookie has grown since its founding could be a story in itself. First, there was the Academy Awards, where Great One Cookie Company set up a booth for the celebrities and their representatives: “It was a great experience for me, I would do it again, for sure,” she says.

Then there was Oprah patronizing her young shop: “She can’t come through town without eating some cookies, and of course I was out of town that day, but evidently she loved them,” she adds.

And, of course, Candace Crawford married some guy named Tony Romo last year, and some Great One Cookies made it there, too: “We did the party favors at their wedding, and all the swag was picked up by People magazine’s people.com.”

Clearly, Great One Cookie Company has a lot to celebrate from the past year, but more than the celebrity and the renown that the company itself has gained, their product still takes the limelight in their small shop that once stood as an art gallery. And if they don’t have the cookie you’re looking for, a simple request might actually get you somewhere.

“With our cookie, you have the density of a thick cookie, but the outer layer is a different texture from the inner core, where you get the softness. So really, you have all of that in one, and that’s one of the things that makes our gourmet artisinal cookie great,” Denesuk says. “People have very, very strong opinions of what they like in a cookie. Some like the really thin, crispy ones, but we don’t focus on a thin, crispy cookie. However, we could do it as a special request; we bake special requests every day for people who are looking for a specific cookie, and we’re happy to do it.”

If Denesuk, and by extension Great One Cookie, seem accommodating, it’s because they are. Denesuk’s approach to customer service is personal and genuine – “We’re open from 11-4, but we’re also open by appointment if you have any cookie emergencies,” she says – as is her appreciation for the community that has helped to spearhead her success. That’s the focus of the birthday celebration for Great One Cookie, in fact – a celebration that not only celebrates the community, but those who help to serve it, and for that matter, the nation as a whole. It’s called Operation Great One Cookie, and it lasts through the end of March. Great One Cookie Company will donate one dozen cookies to the USO for every dozen cookies purchased, and they have identified three active units (all from the Dallas area) that will reap the rewards.

“The community has been so good to us, and the launch of Operation Great One Cookie has been our way of saying, ‘This is the direction that we’re going with our product,” she says.

In just a year, Great One Cookie Company has gotten to the point where they can go in just about whatever direction they choose, and whether its Los Angeles or New York, odds are there will be someone in the shop every day making cookies for special requests, celebrations and just to sell one at a time. They make 10 different types – from chocolate chip to white chocolate macadamia raspberry – every day, and are ready to accommodate those taste buds that might have a more specific craving. The taste may be unique, but the quality’s always the same.

After all, every single cookie they make has the same secret ingredient.