Insomnia Cookies has a new headquarters, flagship bakery, and 4-day workweek

Insomnia Cookies’ flagship store at 1 S. Broad St. will open this weekend.

The store, which soft-launched in January, is hosting an opening event on Saturday, from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. The 26,000-square-foot building in which the store is located is also the warm-cookie company’s new headquarters and includes offices, conference rooms, and a test kitchen.

“Being connected to the origin of the company is really important,” said Tom Carusona, chief marketing officer for Insomnia Cookies. “We want to support Philadelphia and the growth as much as possible — support the community which supports us and has for 20 years.”

The Philly-founded company was started by Seth Berkowitz in 2003 while he was still a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Since then, Insomnia Cookies has grown to 260 stores in the country and is expected to open over 70 new outposts this year, the most it has ever opened in a year. Locally, new stores will open in Ardmore, Fishtown, and South Jersey.

The new street-level flagship store has more seating than the standard-format Insomnia store, said Carusona. The menu features items like “cookie nachos,” a “cookie pizza,” and an option to create your own cookie that are sometimes offered at other Insomnia locations but will always be offered at the flagship location.

The second floor is the “Research and Dough-velopment” area where new cookie, drink, and ice cream flavors are created. Although the company has a dedicated menu team that develops recipes, the space is intended to also be used by other employees that want to test out recipes.

“Our CFO was down here the other day with his team making milkshakes,” said Carusona.

Working at the new space allows corporate employees to be more connected to customers, as the company tests out products and asks for feedback directly from consumers, he said.

Customers will from time to time be able to taste newly developed products that come from the research and development hub. Some might also be invited to the “sensory room” on the second floor to taste new recipes, or a focus group might be brought in to gather feedback, said Carusona.

An open floor plan office space is on the third floor along with several conference rooms. This floor also includes an employee kitchen and a “speakeasy” area with seating for social events such as happy hours. An amphitheater section coined “the quad” is where employees can gather for programming, namely the company’s Monday business update meeting, or eat their lunch and have meetings, as the space was designed with flexibility in mind.

“We want to make sure that people have as many places as possible to have an impromptu meeting, or come up with some ideas,” he said.

On Wednesday the office desks and meeting spaces were mostly empty at the headquarters, as employees were out at bakeries on one of the company’s biggest days of the year, Valentine’s Day. Corporate employees are sent out to work in bakeries a couple of times a year to get a better sense of the brand, and it provides another opportunity to connect with customers, said Carusona.

In January, the company transitioned to a four-day workweek, offering its 100 full-time corporate employees Fridays off, which is important for mental health, said Carusona. The new work schedule, which is fully in-person, has allowed the company to learn how to be more efficient and try to balance work and life, he said.

“Can you have a shorter meeting? Can you walk over to someone’s desk and have a conversation? When everybody’s completely virtual, everything has to be a meeting for the most part.”

For now, the plan seems to be working.

“There’s risks and rewards with it, but so far, the feedback has been awesome. I think people really appreciate that we’re giving them the time, and productivity is doing great. We’re pretty happy with how everyone’s performing.”