Crumbl Cookies now has a pop-up location in the EMU. (Sebastian Flores/Emerald)
On Jan. 16, Crumbl Cookies opened a temporary location in the Erb Memorial Union, occupating the former Little Big Burger space. Crumbl Cookies agreed to operate in the space for 8 weeks, while providing a new food option to University of Oregon employees and students.
After two years of business with UO, Little Big Burger closed its EMU operations abruptly in November due to financial difficulties, its former manager, Carsyn Oxenreiter, said. LBB still operates on Orchard Street, which is the only restaurant of the chain left in Eugene.
According to the Oregon Business Registry, the Orchard location has been on administrative dissolution since Sept. 29, 2022.
Currently, LBB is owned by Amergent Hospitality Group, a business that came under fire in 2023 through its failure to file its quarterly and annual financial reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In its 10-K annual financial report for 2022, Amergent reported $7.4 million in operating losses, more than doubling its $3.4 million in operating losses in 2021, according to SEC data.
Since 2015, several other LBB locations have closed across the nation, including several in Portland, in North Carolina and following financial issues and an eviction, in Texas.
According to Oxenreiter, ever since LBB received new management and investors, “that’s when everything started closing. [LBB management] decided to make the drastic changes to close [a] couple locations.”
Associate Director of University Housing and Director Dining Services, Tom Driscoll, said that bringing in a dessert-oriented vendor was a new sense of flavor for UO, because it “had never had [a vendor] that was focused on just desserts.”
So, Driscoll decided to bring in Crumbl Cookies since it met the standards and expectations of a pop-up vendor.
“Crumbl [Cookies] was chosen because they have a unique product that does not compete directly with our other vendors. They were interested in a short term operation, and they were able to get up and running quickly for winter term,” Driscoll said in an email statement to the Daily Emerald.
According to Driscoll, the choice of a pop-up vendor was to find an immediate temporary replacement for the vacant space.
“I know that to get a permanent replacement for Little Big Burger is going to take a long time,” Driscoll said. “It takes, sometimes, a year and I didn’t want this space to be vacant for the rest of this academic year.”
“Having the convenience and something that’s new every week for college students actually adds a spunk of excitement,” UO student Natalia Pruklang said.
“ [LBB’s] profit wasn’t where we wanted it to be with the EMU rent,” Oxenreiter said.
Neither Oxenreiter or Driscoll disclosed the leasing agreement. However, Oxenreiter said that “the Orchard Street one was less rent than the EMU rent.”
Additionally, Oxenreiter said that making a profit during the summer proved to be difficult.
“The issue was that during the summer months, it’s so slow, and having to get those profits up to the point that we can stay there is kind of hard especially because there’s no students,” Oxenreiter said.
According to Driscoll, restaurants and businesses affiliated with UO are informed about the slow summers beforehand.
Restaurants and businesses do know that the summer is slower, certainly in August. There are fewer students here so they all know that going into it,” Driscoll said. In fact, “some of the leases are designed to work with that understanding.”
Driscoll said that LBB had an issue with providing fast service to students.
“One of their issues was that their service was slow and that students had to wait too long,” Driscoll said. So then, “Little Big Burger told me that they weren’t able to go faster.”
Pruklang said that she too noticed LBB’s failure of providing fast service.
“I always felt bad for Little Big Burger because it was super busy and it would take forever to get the food out,” Pruklang said. “That kind of restaurant that’s like cook to order just wasn’t for the EMU.”
LBB did not give the university a notice before closing operations in November.
“Little Big Burger left without any notice,” Driscoll said.
Oxenreiter said that LBB was transparent about their financial difficulties to the university, and that LBB did not expect any financial aid from the university.
However, the closure of LBB did not come as a surprise for Oxenreiter.
“I knew about a month when they discussed closing,” Oxenreiter said. “I’m not really sure how long upper management has been talking about it, but from them telling us, from them telling me it was probably a month and a half month.”
Driscoll said that effort was put in to potentially keep LBB open until the end of the fall term.
“We tried to get them to stay at least till the end of the term,” Driscoll said.
Driscoll said that University Housing Dining Services are continuing to seek a long-term replacement.
Driscoll has targeted specific vendors based on a number of factors including compatibility with existing vendors, customer preferences, brand strength, past performance and financial strength of the brand.
Dining services are exploring a variety of diverse foods as a permanent replacement, including Hawaiian and Malaysian foods, and the possibility of partnering with a chain restaurant or a small business. According to Driscoll, dining services will not exclude the idea of partnering with another burger joint.
“It’s cool — obviously I love Crumbl Cookies, but I think they should always do something local,” maintenance worker Michael Swanberg said.
Many UO employees and students had mixed feelings about the closure of LBB.
“It definitely kind of sucks. ‘What would you prefer: cookies or hamburgers?’” Swanberg said.
Similarly, UO student Nghia Warren said that “it felt a bit random” for UO to bring in Crumbl Cookies as a replacement to LBB.
On the contrary, UO student Lorelei Rinehart said that she’s disappointed to see LBB leave.
“I’m kind of disappointed because I really liked the burgers,” Rinehart said “College students would benefit more from burgers than cookies.”
