There’s a new sweet shop in town, and the concept is far from half-baked. Captain Cookie and the Milkman—a decade-old purveyor of ice cream sandwiches, shakes and, well, cookies—opened in Courthouse on Feb. 10.
This is the first Virginia location for the D.C.-bred company, which also operates shops in the District, New York City and North Carolina, where husband-and-wife co-owners Kirk and Juliann Francis now reside.
“Bringing Captain Cookie to Courthouse means we can put more smiles on more faces—by baking the best cookies for Arlington and serving up the highest quality local dairy, by having that personal interaction with each individual that can change the course of a day,” Juliann said in a press release.
On the menu, find roughly eight to 10 cookie varieties, such as chocolate chip, snickerdoodle and ginger-molasses. Cookies can be purchased individually ($2) or by the half-dozen or baker’s dozen ($9 and $18, respectively). Safe-to-eat cookie dough and ice cream sandwiches (with two cookies or open-faced) are also available with vanilla, chocolate or strawberry ice cream, or specialty flavors such as salted caramel and cookies ‘n’ cream available on rotation. For Valentine’s Day, pick up a box of 13 cookies—including limited-edition pink funfetti and red velvet—packaged in a bow-tied red box with a customizable note.
For those with an end-of-the-evening sweet tooth, the shop will stay open late, closing at 10 p.m. most weekdays and keeping the oven going till midnight Thursday through Saturday.
Captain Cookie debuted in 2012 as a food truck delivering sweet treats to D.C. and Northern Virginia, and continues to operate multiple trucks in the D.C. area. The Arlington storefront was initially slated to open in 2022, but those plans were scuttled by pandemic delays.
Ten percent of all Courthouse sales on opening day will be donated to the Arlington Food Assistance Center. The company routinely contributes a portion of profits to support local charities, including D.C. Central Kitchen, No Kid Hungry and Capital Area Food Bank, as part of its mission to “save the world one cookie at a time.”
“We have the privilege of building an empowered team of cookie crew members here and shining a light in the community right around us,” Juliann says.
Captain Cookie and the Milkman is located at 2200 Clarendon Blvd., Arlington. It is open from Monday-Wednesday from 10 a.m.-10 p.m., Thursday and Friday 10 a.m.-midnight, Saturday 11 a.m.-midnight and Sunday 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Â
This post has been updated to clarify the year Captain Cookie and the Milkman was slated to open in Courthouse.