With sales struggling and stores closing, Crumbl prepares a value offer

Crumbl, the struggling treat chain, is preparing a $1.99 value offer as it works to lift sales and build interest in dirty sodas.

Starting on Friday, the company will offer a 24-ounce zero-sugar Dirty Soda and a large Chocolate Chip Thin cookie for $1.99, CEO Jason McGowan told franchisees in an announcement seen by Restaurant Business.

"We have a cookie and dessert brand that customers love, and beverages create another reason to visit, and another occasion to serve, and another way to introduce someone to Crumbl," McGowan said in the message.

Sales struggles

The offer comes as Crumbl’s sales remain weak and many stores are unprofitable and closing.

As we reported earlier this month, sales were down 70% in August compared with two years earlier. Company documents show an improvement in September, thanks to weeks featuring Minecraft-themed cookies and then Little Debbie-themed treats. Sales that month were down 50% over the same time frame.

It didn’t appear to help profitability much. According to company documents seen by Restaurant Business, median per-store profit was $1,832 during the month. That’s less than $22,000 on an annualized basis.

Sales this month have been down again. “October has been miserable,” one franchisee said.

Franchisees keep closing and selling stores. Locations have closed recently in Melbourne, Florida; Savannah, Georgia; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Montgomery, Alabama; among others.

A six-store franchisee in New England filed for bankruptcy last month and is selling its locations. Another two-store operator sent a message to franchisees recently offering to sell their locations at a “substantially discounted” asking price.

Store closures

Crumbl has closed 65 locations since April 30, according to a count on the company’s website compared with a master list that we have obtained from that date. It has opened another 15, giving the brand 50 net closures. The company started 2026 with 1,101 locations.

Crumbl, which McGowan and his cousin Sawyer Hemsley founded in 2017, had grown into the largest cookie chain in the country in just six years. McGowan and Hemsley sold a portion of the business to a private-equity firm, TSG Consumer Partners, last year at a $2 billion valuation.

But its sales have been falling over the past two years, worsening store-level profit challenges and raising the ire of the brand’s operators.

The company introduced Dirty Soda earlier this year, and demanded franchisees pay up to $50,000 to install drink equipment in their stores, as we reported earlier this month. Yet the chain’s August “Soda Week” push led to the weakest sales in Crumbl history, and many franchisees say they still struggle with weak sales.

Crumbl has not responded to numerous requests for comment, either for this story or our initial report. But on Oct. 9, McGowan took to social media to acknowledge the brand’s challenges.

“The restaurant industry is facing real headwinds right now, and Crumbl is no exception,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “I could point to them, but that doesn’t solve anything. As a leader, I should have anticipated them sooner and adjusted our course. That is on me.”

That same day, however, one of Crumbl’s “brand excellence specialists” sent an email suggesting the company was doubling down on monitoring franchisees via camera, then fining them for violations. Crumbl requires franchisees to install cameras in their stores, then has a team that monitors those cameras for violations, with fines ranging from $250 to $1,000. Those fines are taken directly out of franchisees’ bank accounts.

“Yes, we are watching,” the specialist, DeeDee Caley, said in the message, a copy of which was seen by Restaurant Business and confirmed by multiple operators. One of those operators’ locations have been closed for weeks.

“We need to get back to basics,” Caley wrote. “Notices and fines will be coming back into play, so I’m trying to give all ‘my stores’ a head start.”

New value offer

Crumbl tried selling Dirty Soda to generate sales this year.

But on Saturday, Taylor Ransom, SVP of operational excellence with the chain, sent operators a clarification apologizing for the email and saying that it was “not an official Crumbl HQ communication and did not reflect our approved approach to engaging with our franchise partners.”

“To be clear,” Ransom wrote, “there are no new plans to increase store reviews, introduce additional fines, or broadly change our existing accountability processes.”

Nevertheless, the initial email from Caley added to the tension within the system over brand performance and store closures. “There is something fundamentally wrong when a company’s approach to brand protection is to remind franchisees that they are being watched and threaten them with fines,” one franchisee said about the email.

Crumbl’s franchisee closures appear to be affecting the company itself. Crumbl finished 2025 with $6 million in cash, according to the company’s franchise documents. It laid off workers in August and September, though exactly how many is uncertain. Franchisees, former workers, and a post on the social media site Reddit, however, said more than 120 people were let go during those rounds of layoffs.

Some franchisees have pushed the company to help improve store profitability by allowing them to open later. Stores are required to be open at 8 a.m., but operators want to open at 10 a.m. to save on labor. Some franchisees have also asked for flexibility on pricing. Crumbl in its franchise documents gives franchisees limited flexibility on prices.

Crumbl has pushed operators to boost sales of Dirty Sodas themselves. The company last week sent franchisees an email with assets for direct mailers offering free sodas, a card offering free sodas, and copy for an ad on local radio.

The value offer, meanwhile, appears to be designed to address multiple concerns about Crumbl all at once.

Some customers on social media have complained about the cookie company’s prices. And the Dirty Soda rollout was marked by controversy over the sugar content in some of the company’s creations, notably a particularly caloric large “Crazy Cousins” drink, which featured 186 grams of sugar.

An ad for the product highlights that the combination of the zero-sugar Dirty Soda and the thin cookie has just 170 calories. The offer, McGowan said, “gives customers a compelling new reason to stop at Crumbl.”

Not all Crumbl’s locations will be able to participate, however. According to franchisees, about 300 of the chain’s stores have not installed the beverage machines, despite Crumbl’s threats to declare them in default.