Two sweet new pitstops, Dirty Dough Cookies and Bruster’s Real Ice Cream, will open in Dana Point later this year. The chain shops will join a slew of other eateries within the coastal enclave’s burgeoning Lantern Village District, joining neighboring dining spots like Maison Cafe + Market, Clean Juice, Bear Coast Coffee, Homeslice, Dana Point Ale House and Truly Pizza.

Dirty Dough Cookies

A Utah-based enterprise, Dirty Dough prepares its cookies from the inside out, with every cookie featuring layers, mix-ins and/or filling within the dough. “The other guys can focus on making cutesy, clean cookies that look better than they taste,” beams the copy on the company’s website. “Dirty Dough sells cookies for real life, which can get a little messy.”

Such maximalist cookies listed on the Dirty Dough menu include the Raspberry Toaster Tart, a Pop Tart-like sugar cookie filled with raspberry jam and topped with icing and sprinkles; the Reverse, a fudge filling wrapped in a chocolate cookie, which is then wrapped in a peanut butter cookie and drizzled with chocolate and crushed Reese’s; the Brookie, a brownie and cookie hybrid filled with caramel; the Parent Trap, a chocolate cookie stuffed with peanut butter and topped with peanut butter frosting and a chocolate cream cookie crumble; and Bliss, an oatmeal cookie crammed with cream cheese and topped with orange-tinged cream cheese, dried cranberries, and white chocolate chips.

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Bennett Maxwell founded Dirty Dough Cookies in 2018 from his Arizona State University dorm room, according to lore.

The company landed in legal trouble in 2022, prompting a so-called Utah Cookie War on social media, when competitor Crumbl filed a lawsuit against Dirty Dough accusing the company of “forming businesses copying Crumbl’s processes, trademarks, and trade dress in a confusingly similar way.” Crumbl Founder/CEO Jason McGowan alleged in a post on LinkedIn that “one of the defendant’s brothers, who we also believe was involved in the defendant’s business, was a former corporate employee of Crumbl who has access to our recipes, schematics, processes, and other proprietary information.”

In response to the lawsuit, Maxwell said in a 2022 press release, “Apparently, this billion-dollar company, Crumbl, is threatened by a start-up with only a couple of locations in order to make a federal case out of rainbow sprinkles and rectangular boxes … Dirty Dough intends to defend itself against its baseless claims.”

The suit has since been settled out of court.

Marking the company’s first footprint in California, the Dana Point location will join other future Dirty Dough Cookies poised to open in Modesto, Poway, Oceanside and Stevenson Ranch.

Bruster’s Real Ice Cream will open at the corner of Amber Lantern and Pacific Coast Highway. (Photo by Brock Keeling/SCNG)

Bruster’s Real Ice Cream

Bruster’s Real Ice Cream, a scoop shop specializing in rich ice cream (12% butterfat) and making fresh waffle cones and desserts in every shop.

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In addition to ice cream, the 200-unit chain also sells frozen yogurt, milkshakes, sundaes, pies and custom ice cream cakes, including the cone cake, an ice cream cake flanked by filled wafer cones

Founded in 1989 by Bruce Reed (the “Bruce” in Bruster’s) in Bridgewater, Pennsylvania, Bruster’s popular flavors include Southern Banana Puddin, Butter Pecan and Chocolate Peanut Butter Buckeye.

Bruster’s has approximately 200 independently owned locations in 22 states and Guyana. Its Dana Point location joins other OC Bruster’s in Huntington Beah, Orange, Cypress, Seal Beach, Yorba Linda and Fullerton.

Both Dirty Dough Cookies and Bruster’s Real Ice Cream, each located within a block of each other, are tentatively scheduled to open later this summer.