Today local warm-cookie delivery company Jake's Bakes will announce a merger with Tiff's Treats, a Texas-based cookie delivery service. If you have become hooked on the on-demand baked goods, do not panic: They'll still come to your doorstep.
"Starting and running Jake's Bakes has been an incredibly rewarding experience for me," says Jake Veyhl, who takes the title of Nashville district manager for Tiff's, overseeing Music City operations and expansion. "By joining the Tiff's Treats team, I look forward to enhancing the customer experience and expanding the warm-cookie delivery industry across Middle Tennessee. I am ecstatic to help an established company like Tiff's Treats grow in Nashville."
As Bites first reported in January 2013, Jake's Bakes opened the delivery-only service with his own friend-tested recipes. By September 2014 Jake's was busy enough to expand into a retail storefront on Elliston Place, with longer hours as well as the thriving delivery business.
Tiff's Treats has 36 locations in six cities; Nashville will make seven, with a new Gulch location and the existing Jake's shop becoming stores 37 and 38. Like Jake's, Tiff's started small, launching in 1999 in Austin out of a college apartment kitchen. (Chen attended the University of Texas at Austin, as Veyhl did, but that's just coincidence; they didn't overlap in their college years.)
The first Tiff Treat's store in Tennessee will open at 137 12th Ave. N. (in The Gossett on Church) the week of March 19, with a grand opening on March 24. The grand opening will include discounted cookies and a fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The Gulch store will serve customers of the current Jake's Bakes location, which will close for remodeling on March 19. When that Vanderbilt-area shop reopens in the spring, the combined stores should have a slightly larger delivery area (with expansion into more of East Nashville and Belle Meade) than Jake's currently serves.
"We have been looking to expand into Nashville because it is such a vibrant and growing market with a creative and friendly culture that fits our brand, concept and customer service style," says Tiffany Taylor Chen, president and co-founder of Tiff's Treats. After the company identified Music City as its next location, the Chens (Tiffany and husband and co-founder Leon) approached Veyhl about joining forces. "Jake's Bakes has created a brand that Nashville customers have fallen in love with," she says, "and with their similar model and menu, we thought it would be a great fit for us to team up and bring Jake on board."
