Queen City Cookies opens in Findlay Market

Peggy Shannon doesn’t waste time. Especially not when it comes to building Queen City Cookies into a business that she hopes will change the world – one sweet donation at a time. In just eight days, she took an abandoned building in Over-the-Rhine – a building stripped of every inch of pipe and unused for a year – and created a new Findlay Market shop where more customers than ever can discover her delectable cookie creations. Set to open this Saturday at 8 am, Queen City Cookies sits between Churchill’s Fine Teas and Market Wines. “It’s a mad rush, I will tell you,” says Shannon, who hired a new employee, effectively doubling her staff, to work at the store. She called friends and contractors and told them her opening day was just a week and one day away. “Everyone kept laughing and telling me I was crazy.” But the former marketing director for the Contemporary Arts Center remembers the advice she got while working as a marketing manager for Whole Foods. “You can do anything you set your mind to,” she says. “Make a plan and execute the plan.” Shannon’s plan evolved from baking one gorgeous cookie, Our Lady of Guadeloupe, into a thriving business creating, from scratch, edible works of art from more than 500 intricate molds. Because her cookies are so beautiful, some customers can’t bring themselves to eat them. So in addition to her classic shortbread Queen Iced Delights, Shannon created Pachyderm Packs, bags of smaller, elephant-shaped cookies in four flavors: Chocolate Chipotle, Em’s Blues (a blueberry maple cookie that tastes like a blueberry pancake), Pure Sass (the original) and Rosemary with Sunflower and Sesame Seeds. “My whole reason to go into business to begin with was to share joy with people,” Shannon says. “The cookies are so delightful. When people eat them, they are happy.” In addition to Iced Delights ($4 and up), Shannon offers the Pachyderm Packs ($7 for about 25 cookies) and her own recipe of schnecken, of the “gooey delicious” variety, at her new shop. Shannon wants to use her new space to share more than great sweets and treats, though. She sees product sales as a way she can give back to Cincinnati, the city she has called home since 2006. Her goal? To become a philanthropist along the lines of Louise Nippert and Otto M. Budig. She started early, already partnering her young company with local nonprofits like Women Helping Women, the Civic Garden Center, the American Heart Association and Happen Inc. Shannon, though, thinks bigger. Much bigger. “I want to be able to have enough money to donate $22 million per year,” Shannon says. “I have a long way to go – but you have got to start somewhere.” Queen City Cookies opens its doors at 8 am, Saturday, Sept. 3, 124 W. Elder St. For more information, call 513-591-0022.