Less than a year after launching Longhorn Chicken, chef Eddie Windwillow is already expanding into the West Campus dessert game. This past August, he and business partner William Marsden, owner of the popular Glassmith truck, opened Cold Cookie Co. 

When the ice cream truck Cowtipping Creamery shut its doors earlier this summer, Windwillow and Marsden saw the perfect opportunity to step in with their business idea. “Bill and I had been talking for a while, and we decided that if anyone in the park left, we were ready to roll,” Windwillow said. The partnership between the two business owners came naturally after working in close proximity for the past couple years. 

“I always liked the way Eddie worked,” Marsden said. “Since we got here, he’s been putting more and more time in every day and I thought it would be great if this dude would partner with me.”

Cold Cookie Co. currently offers a brief menu of six ice cream flavors, eight classic cookie choices and a selection of toppings ranging from M&M’s to pretzels. Customers can order ice cream cookie sandwiches, scoops with cookies or milkshakes. While Windwillow and Marsden plan on keeping the menu fairly consistent, they are open to seasonal changes and specials such as adding coffee and hot chocolate during the winter and getting a shaved ice machine during the summer. 

“Right now, though, we want to just focus on keeping the menu clear and concise and adjusting it to what does and doesn’t work,” Marsden said.

Using his formal culinary training background, Windwillow creates the cookie recipes in house, but the ice cream is sourced from local favorite Austin Scoops. Windwillow said he hopes to be making ice cream for the truck from scratch by the end of next year.

“The process of opening Cold Cookie was a little more hurried than what either of our natural progressions for opening a new business would have been, but you can’t sleep when you’re trying to open a new truck here,” Windwillow said. 

While the launch of their new food truck may have been rushed, it doesn’t show in their products. Windwillow’s cookies, which come from his mother and mother-in-law’s recipes, live up to the high standards he set with Longhorn Chicken. The cookies served are not warm and gooey like some people may like, but what they lack in temperature, they make up for in flavor and texture. 

All of the cookies on the menu have a perfect balance of softness and crunch to please anyone’s preference. The true highlight is the chocolate chunk cookie ­— the lovechild of a cookie and brownie with pecan pieces in the middle.

Cold Cookie Co. also offers daily milkshake specials. Sunday’s: the Coffee Lover’s Delight, which incorporated coffee Oreo ice cream, pieces of Heath, a chocolate chip cookie and chocolate dwrizzle. This particular milkshake wasn’t too overpowering and the consistency was ideal for drinking through a straw without any struggle. 

The truck’s first few weeks of business did not come without some room for improvement. Offering a warmed cookie option and a few more specialty milkshakes on the menu, as well as making the menu itself a bit clearer would help. But other than those small things, Cold Cookie Co. is already showing a lot of promise to become a dessert staple of the West Campus community. 

Name: Cold Cookie Co.
Address: 2512 Rio Grande St.,
Hours: 12-11 p.m. Everyday
Rating: 8/10
Recommended Dish: Coffee Oreo Scoop w/Chocolate Chunk Cookie