Aaron Lawrie, owner-operator of the Crumbl Cookies store set to open in Waterbury. HBJ Photo | Michael Puffer
In late 2020, Troy van Belle, a sales director overseeing more than 600 employees for a national residential solar company, took his top-performing staff to a business conference at Utah’s Sundance Mountain Resort.
Troy van Belle
There, van Belle, who was 36 and living in Southington at the time, met a group of attendees preparing to open Florida’s first Crumbl Cookies franchise stores.
“We got to talking about it and I already loved desserts — I was a huge sweets person,” van Belle said. “And I had Crumbl when I visited Utah, so I knew that their cookies were great. So, I decided to apply.”
About six weeks later, in February 2021, van Belle received approval from Crumbl to open three franchise stores in Connecticut. That December, he and Tucker Bartone — a friend and former colleague in the solar industry — launched Connecticut’s first Crumbl in a retail plaza near The Shoppes at Buckland Hills mall in Manchester.
Next came Crumbl shops in Milford (September 2022), West Hartford (March 2023), Norwalk (2023) and West Springfield, Mass. (October 2023). The Norwalk location has since closed.
These Crumbl stores and other quick-service restaurants owned by the partners now operate under the umbrella of Dark Horse Franchising.
The group’s latest project is a new Crumbl in Waterbury — in a Stop & Shop-anchored retail plaza at 939 Wolcott St. — scheduled to open early this month.
The partners say their long-term goal is to build a network of more than 200 franchise locations across multiple brands. And they aren’t alone in betting on franchise growth.
It’s a model with a long and growing presence in Connecticut.
According to the International Franchise Association, the state is home to more than 8,100 franchise establishments, which collectively employ over 85,000 workers and generated roughly $8.8 billion in economic output in 2024. The number of franchise establishments in the state is expected to increase by about 2.3% in 2025, led by quick-service restaurants, personal services and retail-food concepts.
Major brands such as Subway, Edible Arrangements and Wayback Burgers all trace their roots to Connecticut, underscoring the state’s role as both a testing ground and headquarters hub for national franchise systems.
Not your average cookie
Crumbl was created by cousins Jason McGowan and Sawyer Hemsley, who opened their first store in Logan, Utah in 2017. Today, the company offers a rotating lineup of cookies, served in its signature pink boxes at more than 1,000 locations across the U.S. and beyond.
The Waterbury shop is opening under the management of Aaron Lawrie, of Wallingford, a friend of van Belle who joined the partnership in 2022. The two met at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Southington. At the time, Lawrie was an engineer and supervisor with Electric Boat in Groton.
“One day in church, (van Belle) asked me if I wanted to quit my day job and talked about partnering with him on the next three sets of Crumbl (stores),” Lawrie said.
After thinking about it for a day, Lawrie decided to take the leap. Like Bartone, his contribution comes in the form of “sweat equity” — managing the shops rather than investing capital.
“I feel like if the opportunity had come 10 years later, I probably wouldn’t have done it because I was so close to retirement,” the 52-year-old Lawrie said.
In Waterbury, Lawrie said Dark Horse will invest about $700,000 to launch the shop.
Running the franchise businesses, he said, takes far more hours than his former engineering job. But there are rewards beyond a paycheck, including providing jobs for young people and creating a positive experience for customers.
“One of the things I love the most is having that opportunity to hand people a box of cookies, because it always brings a smile to their face,” Lawrie said. “You kind of get that immediate gratification. You are bringing joy to their life. Who knows what kind of day they are having, but a box of cookies makes it better.”
Branching out
Van Belle and his partners branched into a new franchise venture last October with the opening of a Playa Bowls shop in Newington. The health-food chain specializes in superfruit bowls, smoothies and juices made with ingredients like açaí, pitaya and coconut.
Since then, they’ve opened Playa Bowls locations in Manchester and Shelton, as well as in Hudson and Worcester, Mass.
Dark Horse recently began outfitting another Playa Bowls in a ShopRite-anchored plaza off Route 10 in Southington. The partners are also moving forward with plans for Springfield and West Springfield stores and are scouting additional sites in Connecticut, Massachusetts and beyond.
Dark Horse aims to open 26 more Playa Bowls locations over the next three to four years, said van Belle, who now lives in Utah, while his partners Bartone and Lawrie remain in Connecticut.
Dark Horse’s profit margin has grown 350% since its launch, with about 135 employees and nearly $10 million in gross revenue. Van Belle said the company expects to at least double in size in the coming year, with growth eventually taking it overseas.
The group’s Manchester Crumbl location opened with about $560,000 invested by van Belle. Since then, Dark Horse has turned to more complex financing, including a $1.8 million loan through the U.S. Small Business Administration. It has recapitalized with ApplePie Capital, a San Francisco-based lender that specializes in franchise financing, and borrowed from Harbour Capital, a New Hampshire franchise financier.
With a goal of opening as many as 200 franchise locations over the next five years, van Belle said he’s looking to partner with private-equity investors or other lenders that can provide a line of credit or other forms of flexible, ready-to-deploy financing.
“We are always open to new financial partners for our growth,” van Belle said.
Dark Horse is also preparing to add four new owner-operators to help oversee its expansion, van Belle said. All are close friends with prior professional ties to the existing ownership group.
“I believe if you have the right people in the business, you can do anything,” van Belle said. “I have a philosophy that it’s fun making money, but it’s more fun to do it with your friends. Trust is the biggest thing.”
Major brands such as Subway, Edible Arrangements and Wayback Burgers all trace their roots to Connecticut, underscoring the state’s role as both a testing ground and headquarters hub for national franchise systems.
In Waterbury, Lawrie said Dark Horse will invest about $700,000 to launch the shop.
Running the franchise businesses, he said, takes far more hours than his former engineering job. But there are rewards beyond a paycheck, including providing jobs for young people and creating a positive experience for customers.
“One of the things I love the most is having that opportunity to hand people a box of cookies, because it always brings a smile to their face,” Lawrie said. “You kind of get that immediate gratification. You are bringing joy to their life. Who knows what kind of day they are having, but a box of cookies makes it better.”