This cookie-making Tar Heel couple leaves no crumbs

In fall 2006, a certain first-year student felt a little lost walking through Polk Place on the first day of class. But she soon spotted a junior she had met a few days earlier. Kirk Francis ’08 was handing out homemade chocolate chip cookies from a giant Tupperware container.

“That really captures who he is,” said Juliann Francis ’10 of the man she married. “He enjoys cooking and baking for large amounts of people and loves to share joy through that. It’s why our company has been so successful.”

Kirk and Juliann Francis started Captain Cookie and the Milkman in 2012 in a renovated newspaper van in Washington, D.C. The company now includes a fleet of trucks and multiple locations in the nation’s capital as well as two stores in Raleigh.

One guy and a truck

The couple began dating after meeting at the Lutheran Campus Ministry. After graduation, Kirk Francis took a job as a government contractor in Washington. But he also delivered his cookies to local coffee shops every day by 6 a.m. before heading to his day job, working more than 100 hours a week.

“It was a ton of learning,” said Kirk Francis. “You think, ‘Oh, it’s just some flour and sugar.’ But you’re also paying for electricity to power the oven, gas to drive around, containers for cookies. I think a lot of people don’t account for their time, too.”

A few years later, Juliann Francis (whose degree was in journalism) was also in Washington, working at Bloomberg News. Then the food truck phenomenon hit town. It seemed like a good time for Kirk Francis to focus on cookies full time. He bought a large delivery truck and outfitted it to serve as a mobile bakeshop.

“When you take a full-scale bakery and put it in a 70-square-foot truck and roll it down the highway at 65 miles per hour, you’re going to have challenges every day,” he said.

Back to the Tar Heel State

Juliann Francis coined the company name, inspired by the nostalgia of comic books. A couple of years later, she became CEO to focus on operations and scaling the business. They outfitted more trucks and opened more Washington locations before deciding to return to North Carolina — for the business and for their growing family. They opened a location in Transfer Co. Food Hall in downtown Raleigh in 2019 and added a store in the city’s North Hills neighborhood last year.

“We always wanted to come back to the Triangle,” she said.

The move to North Carolina brought the cookie business full circle. “Obsessed” with cookies as a kid in Oklahoma, Kirk Francis developed his chocolate chip cookie recipe as a student at Carolina, baking in a residence hall.

“I didn’t know a soul when I got to UNC, and some of my closest friends are people I met there who have been a part of this journey,” he said. “College is the first time I had to figure out how to pay rent, sign a lease, cook for myself and create an entirely new social environment. Learning how to deal with change and go through those experiences help prepare you for all of things you’ll face in the working world.”

As they look ahead to a new year, their goal hasn’t changed since his days of handing out cookies on Polk Place.

“Even if someone’s just coming in for a cookie, we want them to walk out happier than when they came in, and hopefully spread that to their family and friends,” said Juliann Francis. “We’re just trying to make people’s lives better within our sphere as much as possible.”