They may not yet have their Carrie Bradshaw cupcake moment, but gooey cookies are quickly becoming San Antonio’s latest dessert craze. Bakery chain Dirty Dough is expanding its Alamo City footprint with a new location at 5216 Broadway in Alamo Heights, scheduled to open later in 2026.

Dirty Dough is known for its plump cookies, which are "engineered from the inside out" with various mix-ins, fillings, and crunchy toppings. The bakery is always on top of trends, combining classics like chocolate chip and strawberry shortcake with flavors like ube rainbow pebbles and amaretto cherry.

More recently, it has become a one-stop sweets shop, adding goodies like maple bacon cinnamon rolls, fluffernutter bars, churro waffle bites, and shakes. The brand has also adopted the dirty soda trend with drinks like Dreamsicle Delight made with Fanta Orange, vanilla syrup, and cream.

Dirty Dough has expanded its menu to cinnamon rolls, brownies, and dirty sodas.Dirty Dough/ Facebook

The brand first got its footing with some dorm room kitchen experimentation at Arizona State University, before entrepreneur Bennett Maxwell made it into a viable brand. The immediate popularity, however, soon drew the ire of Utah franchise Crumbl Cookies.

In 2022, the “Utah Cookie Wars” erupted. Crumbl hit Dirty with a pair of lawsuits accusing the company of cribbing trade secrets. Dirty fought back by erecting billboards on Crumbl’s home turf that read “Cookies So Good We're Being Sued” and “Our Cookies Don't Crumble with Competition.”

Dirty had a rocky start in San Antonio, too. The brand debuted in San Antonio in 2022, but the first local shop quickly closed six months later, with local operator Jalon Miyasaki blaming the exit on "slow business.”

Since settling the Crumbl lawsuits and being acquired by restaurant platform Craveworthy Brands in 2024, the brand is once again on a growth spurt, opening new stores and expanding to grocery store shelves.

And the brand will likely be buoyed by San Antonio’s current vogue for cookies. Several national chains, like Insomnia Cookies, are making investments in the city, and more boutique operations, like Tiny’s Milk and Cookies, are getting in on the action with local debuts.

Dirty Dough will be in close proximity to the latter when it opens in the Arcadia Grove Shopping Center. Although the bakery has not released an official opening date, Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation project details say construction will wrap up in early July. Although that timeline is only an estimate, locals can likely expect an opening by the end of the year.