Cookie shop Twin Kookies & Sweets opens first location in Smyrna

The overcast weather couldn’t put a damper on Twin Kookies & Sweets’ grand opening on Wednesday, June 8. Pastel balloons and colorful cookies brightened the day as Pierina Anderson and her family celebrated their sweet shop’s ribbon cutting ceremony.

Twin Kookies & Sweets, a locally owned cookie and shaved ice shop, opened its first brick and mortar location in Smyrna on June 4. Among the ribbon cutting ceremony attendees was Smyrna City Councilmember for Ward 3, Travis Lindley.

“They picked a thriving neighborhood, it’s a huge network of subdivisions within the association so [the neighborhood is] excited about it,” Lindley said. “We’re glad they’re here.”

Pierina Anderson began making cookies with her twin sons one day and posted a photo online, she said. People started reaching out to her to make cookies, and it grew from a business she ran from home into a brick-and-mortar shop.

“My main focus is the kids,” Pierina Anderson said. “I built this more towards family-oriented and places for kids to hang out and eat and do what they like. I was inspired by my kids.”

Twin Kookies & Sweets is family-friendly, with couches, a TV, a kid-sized table and colorful cookies including pastel unicorns, ladybugs and dinosaurs. Their most popular cookie flavor is the snickerdoodle, Pierina said, and they also sell shaved ice that comes in a variety of flavors.

Co-owner and Pierina Anderson’s husband, Ikaika Anderson, said that a part of what makes Twin Kookies special is the cultural diversity he and his wife bring.

“My wife is from a Peruvian background, and I have a Hawaiian background,” Ikaika Anderson said. “So it’s just combining those into gatherings with a big cultural difference.”

One of Ikaika Anderson’s favorite sweets the shop serves is shaved ice, which he thinks is the best in the metro area, he said.

“Our shaved ice is actually shaved, it’s not chunks of ice, so it just melts in your mouth,” Pierina Anderson said.

Business has been going well for the couple so far. They sold out on Saturday, the first day they opened, Pierina Anderson said.

“I wasn’t expecting that to be honest,” she said. “I made cookies thinking people were gonna come, but it was at one point that I was helping my husband and then I looked up and there was a line out the door.”

One of the Andersons’ favorite parts about the storefront is the bathroom, which members of the community, including Ikaika and some of his friends, helped to decorate, Pierina Anderson said. The bathroom wall is covered floor to ceiling in comics that act as wallpaper. They collected as many comics as they could to decorate the bathroom.

“I would like to thank everyone who is here,” Ikaika Anderson said during the ribbon cutting ceremony. “We are very happy, very blessed to be here, and we look forward to being a great part of the community in Smyrna.”