As The Cookie Jar marks five decades, owners build family-like following

The Cookie Jar Eatery was cookies before cookies were cool.

OK, that’s not entirely true. Cookies — those circles of sugary scrumptiousness — always have been cool.

They just haven’t been as readily attainable as they have been the past few years with bakeries specializing in cookies opening frequently in the Sioux Falls area.

That makes The Cookie Jar’s 50-year history of making and baking cookies even more remarkable.

For the past 20 years — plus a few weeks, Glen and Elaine Koch have supervised the creation of the business’ namesake products, along with sandwiches, soups, chili, party mix, cinnamon rolls, granola and other tasty goods.

What would make those two decades perfect is if the Kochs pronounced their last name Cook as in cookie. Instead, it’s Coke, as in the soft drink. That’s a disappointment made easier to bear when your mouth is filled with a frosted sugar cookie.

Or a seven-layer bar.

Or a spoonful of the chili that Glen Koch perfected after trying six recipes. He describes it as a “middle of the road” chili, not too spicy but filled with flavor.

Chili and chicken tortilla soup are found on the menu every Tuesday through Friday with a third recipe that rotates through the schedule. Every other week, that option is vegetarian, like vegetable beef, Elaine Koch said. And every item is made from scratch.

So that means some early mornings, although that has eased a bit since the Kochs stopped offering breakfasts several years ago. Coming out of the pandemic and issues with Glen Koch’s health have reduced hours to 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and days open to four a week.

There’s no public discussion about retirement, however, although The Cookie Jar under the Kochs has settled into its third and final location, they say. When retirement does come, they hope to find someone else to take over the bakery.

That’s what they did July 1, 2002, when the couple became the official owners. The original Cookie Jar had opened in the 1970s in the Western Mall before moving to a downtown storefront on 10th Street, a block east of  Carnegie Town Hall.

Elaine Koch, a South Dakota native, and native Iowan Glen Koch had been involved in a totally different business. She worked in sales for Standard Beauty Supplies and then the company that bought it out. He also sold beauty supplies for 25 years and then spent five years calling on food-processing plants for Chaska Chemical Co.

They had moved from Fort Dodge, Iowa, to Sioux Falls by then. Corporate changes led them to desire something new. That’s when they saw a small classified ad in the daily newspaper.

“It was a little-bitty ad in the Argus Leader,” Elaine Koch said.

“Only about three lines,” added her husband.

It had been placed by Dave and Mary Butler, the second couple to own The Cookie Jar after Leo and Audrey Watzek. Health issues made them want to move closer to family. The Kochs took a week to think about buying the bakery and then took the plunge.

“We went and looked at it,” Elaine Koch said. “I always liked to bake, and it looked like something we could do. And we’d have a business of our own.”

While The Cookie Jar had devoted fans of its titular product, the Kochs knew right away they wanted to expand. During her travels in sales, Elaine Koch had become enamored of a “hole-in-the-wall” cafe in Algona, Iowa, that served soup and homemade bread.

“Even though The Cookie Jar had a storefront, there was hardly any foot traffic going by,” Glen Koch said. The former owners had relied on wholesale, delivering small orders to local convenience stores, he said. It was a lot of work for little return.

“We decided we would serve soup and bread and give away a small-sized cookie to get people to buy our cookies,” Glen Koch said.

That meant the Kochs would need a wait staff. While all three of their children have helped at various times— and son Greg now runs over daily from 605 Running Company to assist with the lunch rush — the Kochs turned to others.

That included Gretchen Johnson Tweet, a schoolteacher and friend from Grace Lutheran Church. She has seen the Kochs’ ministry in action for years.

“They’ve had foster kids all their lives besides having three kids of their own,” Tweet said. “He ushers and serves on the stewardship committee. She’s in the choir and (the bell choir) with me. Twice a month, they bake and donate the round loaf the pastor cuts and holds up and serves for Communion.”

Being a server is much like her previous profession, said Tweet, who now is retired. “You always treat people with respect, not unlike what you do in school, no matter what they look like, what they’re wearing.”

She saw the Kochs put that in action, slipping cookies to customers who only had money enough for a cup of coffee and letting them occupy a seat for hours.

Linnette Sandine has seen it too. Another retired teacher, she took on a server’s job at Tweet’s suggestion. While Tweet also helped part time, Sandine ended up working full time for six years. That was despite a vow she’d made after waitressing as a high school student to never do it again.

“They have a heart of gold,” she said.

When people asked Tweet “what’s good,” she never hesitated in her reply: “Everything!”

She remains a loyal customer.

“If I’m going to order food from any place, this is where I would order it,” Sandine said. “I come get Christmas cookies that no one else in the family likes or I didn’t need a lot of so why cut down a recipe? I get decorated cookies to send to my daughter in California.”

The Kochs closed The Cookie Jar’s storefront earlier this year after Glen was diagnosed with pneumonia several times and underwent surgery to remove one-quarter of his colon. You can’t offer the same service when half of your workforce is gone, Elaine Koch points out.

Lessons they learned during the COVID-19 pandemic have helped them over the last few years, however. They began offering take-and-bake items with an emphasis on breakfast. Glen Koch would deliver them to customers’ cars. Lefse can be purchased year-round, and monster cookies can be made at home.

Oh, monster cookies. Those are longtime customer Heidi Mahrous’ favorite.

“It’s a special treat when I’m out and about,” she said. “I don’t make them at home.”

Mahrous started meeting friends who worked downtown for lunch at The Cookie Jar about 2010. That was the 10th Street location, before the move to Shriver Square in 2012.

“We’d sit in their cute little red booths, and it was such a welcoming place and just a great little lunch stop,” Mahrous said. “The homemade soups and homemade bread, it was always good.”

Over the years, from booths and tables, Mahrous has watched as the Koch family put each other first.

“I love that about them,” she said. “They put family first, and when he’s had problems, his health is a priority. Health and family.”

Mahrous favorite lunch is Glen’s Koch’s chili. That gets Sandine’s vote too. Tweet’s husband looks forward to the beef stroganoff soup. The chicken tortilla soup is a 20-year staple, but the mini-bread loaves that once accompanied it are no more. Elaine Koch’s arthritis won’t permit that tedious work.

She still makes regular-sized loaves of bread, however. The oatmeal bread recipe comes from her mother, while the white bread recipe originated with Glen Koch’s grandmother, a school cook.

The Cookie Jar offers 25 cookies every day along with seven bars — a s’mores bar is a summer offering — and the fudge that comes from the owners of a former downtown flower shop. They offered the recipe to the Kochs when they retired and closed the store.

Like everything else, cookies have trends. Two cookies were pulled years ago when they didn’t meet sales expectation. The “delicious cookie” offered coconut, Rice Krispies cereal and chocolate chips in a sugar cookie, while the cowboy cookie included Rice Krispies, chocolate chips and oatmeal.

The newest offerings: a lemon cookie and the caramel thunder bar. And this is the slow season: In the days preceding Christmas, it’s nothing to make 500 holiday cookies a day.

To mark the 20th anniversary, however, several old recipes may come back on a temporary basis. A toffee bar, a Tweet favorite, also has made a return to the display case.

“I’m thinking I’m going to bring some of the bars back: the chocolate revel bar, the pecan bar, the lemon bar,” Elaine Koch said.

Added Glen Koch, “We might bring one of those cookies back. I always liked the cowboy cookie.”

Leftover cookies are taken to St. Francis House and sometimes end up at coffee after services at Grace Lutheran, Tweet said. Glen Koch insists the freewill offerings be donated to the church’s benevolence fund, she said.

The Kochs also produce pies for church suppers and do multiple other good deeds. It’s just the way people should live, said the couple, who are approaching their 46th wedding anniversary.

To celebrate their 20th year, on July 1 the Kochs began donating 20 percent of their lunch proceeds to The 437 Project, a fundraiser to support the Helpline Center. The Helpline is the only accredited suicide-crisis center in South Dakota. It connects individuals with thoughts of suicide to resources and support through local agency volunteers.

Greg Koch is a member of The 437 Project. It is a ride across South Dakota for suicide prevention scheduled for September.

“Our son is running, and this is a way to sponsor him,” Glen Koch said. “We’ve always taught our kids to give back, and that’s one way to give back to the community.”

An uncle of Glen’s died by suicide as did a neighbor.

“We’ve been touched by it personally,” Elaine Koch said.

The Kochs’ donation will include delivered lunch catering, but they do ask for a 48-hour notice. Minimums will apply.

Probably the Kochs’ only disappointment in 20 years at The Cookie Jar: when someone stole a bicycle from the store that was going to be given away in a special promotion for their 10th anniversary. Someone walked off with it during a noon rush, and no one noticed until too late, the Kochs lament.

The good times far outnumber that frustration. As they look to the future, they refuse to turn to anything ready-made to make life easier.

“Then it wouldn’t be us,” Glen Koch said.

“Us” is what brought the daughter of a longtime customer to the bakery one day. Her parents had dined at The Cookie Jar once a week for years, always ordering the sloppy joe on a bun. Her mother, recently diagnosed with a terminal illness and moved to hospice, wanted a sloppy joe one more time.

The Kochs, of course, complied.

And, they didn’t say so, but it will surprise no one who knows them to suspect that there likely was no charge.