Our Story
Hi, we are Tom & Sheri Haupenthal, the owners of Addicting Pretzels LLC. Thanks for stopping by. The story about starting Addicting Pretzels is a little long but if we didn't include everything you might not understand it. So grab your favorite pretzels and enjoy the read.
We met in high school a long time ago and have been married for 20 years in August 2013. Yes, we are high school sweet hearts. Some of our best friends are as well, more about one of those couples in a minute. We have seven kids that were all born within 6 years of each other. There are five boys and two girls. As you can imagine with that many kids, we are really busy with sports, scouts & school activities. Plus two full time jobs.
Now back to that couple I mentioned before. Their names are Holly & Al and we have known them since high school.....we all graduated the same year and have been friends forever. We have known them so long that we are friends with Holly's parents as well. I say friends but in reality they are more like family. We have gone camping with them, spent holidays together and are together all the time. Holly & Al have five kids, four girls and one boy. Fortunately our kids & their kids get along!!! Holly & Al make a point to come to our kids activities and we try to do the same for their kids.
During the summer of 2011, Holly & Al's 2nd oldest had a softball tournament a few hours from home. Sheri and I tagged along since it was a nice day out and we were in the mood to watch some select fastpitch softball (our 2nd daughter plays too.....she is a few years younger than their daughter though). While we were at the game, Holly's Mom (Grandma C to our kids) was passing around a bag of pretzels. When they got to me (Tom) I didn't want to let them go. I asked Grandma C to give Sheri the recipe so we could have them whenever we wanted at home. Grandma C was happy to share it.
When Sheri made the pretzels at home, they were gone within days. The kids would take them to school for snack for themselves or to share with their friends. Their friends were even begging them to bring some to school for them. I had them in my lunch everyday. Sheri would have to make some special and hide them just so we could take them to the kids games. At some point, we started sharing the pretzels with some of our friends at the games. They all loved them too. It got to the point people would ask us if we had brought pretzels to the game. If we did, they want to sit near us so they could get some too. A lot of our friends started to encourage us to sell the pretzels because they loved them so much.
Since Sheri already owned a business & we both have the spirit of entrepreneurship , we started to think about it. During that time we tried to come up with new flavors too. The first flavor we created was Cinnamon & Sugar. When we shared Cinnamon & Sugar with our friends, they really pushed us to start selling them. It was at that point we decided to do it. Now we needed to come up with a name. At a football game one night, we were talking with some very good friends and our friend Mike Sprengel said "These pretzels are so addicting!" A light bulb went off above my head and I responded "Mike, you just named our new business!! We are going to call it Addicting Pretzels!!"
Fast forward to the spring of 2012, we really wanted to start the business and did a lot of research. We found an incubator kitchen that was about a two hour drive round trip for us. The place was ideal except the drive. Unfortunately we didn't start then because things just didn't fall into place. Then in December of 2012, we learned of a place that was considering opening their commercial kitchen to people like us. This one was about a 20 minute round trip for us. With our busy schedule we didn't get to meet with them until mid March. After the meeting, we talked about it and decided within days that we were going to do it! We started planning out everything we needed. Many days we wondered if we could do it. We hired and fired a graphic designer. Hired a different person to do our website, labels, business cards, logos and banners (best decision we made). Somehow we learned that April 26th was National Pretzel Day and we both decided that was the perfect day to start Addicting Pretzels.
Update:
In the Fall of 2014 we decided that we wanted to have our own commercial kitchen within a year. Over the next year we looked at a bunch of places but couldn't find anything that fit our needs and budget. Finally in March of 2016 we found a place that was exactly what we were looking for. Over the next five weeks we had a ton of help from friends and family. We cleaned everything, repainted all the walls, varnished the wood work (a lot of wood work), installed new base boards, found a counter top, turned the counter top into an actual counter, bought stainless steal tables and shelves and put them together so we had some work surfaces and finally planned our grand opening. Now we make all of our pretzels in our very own commercial kitchen and have a small retail area where we sell our pretzels as well as different products from some of our favorite farmer's market vendors. Oh and in October we started selling soft pretzels at the store. We call our place a Stichen (Store/Kitchen). Check our Facebook Page for our hours - they vary daily.
We met in high school a long time ago and have been married for 20 years in August 2013. Yes, we are high school sweet hearts. Some of our best friends are as well, more about one of those couples in a minute. We have seven kids that were all born within 6 years of each other. There are five boys and two girls. As you can imagine with that many kids, we are really busy with sports, scouts & school activities. Plus two full time jobs.
Now back to that couple I mentioned before. Their names are Holly & Al and we have known them since high school.....we all graduated the same year and have been friends forever. We have known them so long that we are friends with Holly's parents as well. I say friends but in reality they are more like family. We have gone camping with them, spent holidays together and are together all the time. Holly & Al have five kids, four girls and one boy. Fortunately our kids & their kids get along!!! Holly & Al make a point to come to our kids activities and we try to do the same for their kids.
During the summer of 2011, Holly & Al's 2nd oldest had a softball tournament a few hours from home. Sheri and I tagged along since it was a nice day out and we were in the mood to watch some select fastpitch softball (our 2nd daughter plays too.....she is a few years younger than their daughter though). While we were at the game, Holly's Mom (Grandma C to our kids) was passing around a bag of pretzels. When they got to me (Tom) I didn't want to let them go. I asked Grandma C to give Sheri the recipe so we could have them whenever we wanted at home. Grandma C was happy to share it.
When Sheri made the pretzels at home, they were gone within days. The kids would take them to school for snack for themselves or to share with their friends. Their friends were even begging them to bring some to school for them. I had them in my lunch everyday. Sheri would have to make some special and hide them just so we could take them to the kids games. At some point, we started sharing the pretzels with some of our friends at the games. They all loved them too. It got to the point people would ask us if we had brought pretzels to the game. If we did, they want to sit near us so they could get some too. A lot of our friends started to encourage us to sell the pretzels because they loved them so much.
Since Sheri already owned a business & we both have the spirit of entrepreneurship , we started to think about it. During that time we tried to come up with new flavors too. The first flavor we created was Cinnamon & Sugar. When we shared Cinnamon & Sugar with our friends, they really pushed us to start selling them. It was at that point we decided to do it. Now we needed to come up with a name. At a football game one night, we were talking with some very good friends and our friend Mike Sprengel said "These pretzels are so addicting!" A light bulb went off above my head and I responded "Mike, you just named our new business!! We are going to call it Addicting Pretzels!!"
Fast forward to the spring of 2012, we really wanted to start the business and did a lot of research. We found an incubator kitchen that was about a two hour drive round trip for us. The place was ideal except the drive. Unfortunately we didn't start then because things just didn't fall into place. Then in December of 2012, we learned of a place that was considering opening their commercial kitchen to people like us. This one was about a 20 minute round trip for us. With our busy schedule we didn't get to meet with them until mid March. After the meeting, we talked about it and decided within days that we were going to do it! We started planning out everything we needed. Many days we wondered if we could do it. We hired and fired a graphic designer. Hired a different person to do our website, labels, business cards, logos and banners (best decision we made). Somehow we learned that April 26th was National Pretzel Day and we both decided that was the perfect day to start Addicting Pretzels.
Update:
In the Fall of 2014 we decided that we wanted to have our own commercial kitchen within a year. Over the next year we looked at a bunch of places but couldn't find anything that fit our needs and budget. Finally in March of 2016 we found a place that was exactly what we were looking for. Over the next five weeks we had a ton of help from friends and family. We cleaned everything, repainted all the walls, varnished the wood work (a lot of wood work), installed new base boards, found a counter top, turned the counter top into an actual counter, bought stainless steal tables and shelves and put them together so we had some work surfaces and finally planned our grand opening. Now we make all of our pretzels in our very own commercial kitchen and have a small retail area where we sell our pretzels as well as different products from some of our favorite farmer's market vendors. Oh and in October we started selling soft pretzels at the store. We call our place a Stichen (Store/Kitchen). Check our Facebook Page for our hours - they vary daily.
