Nov. 29—Asked about their first impression of Crumbl Cookies recently, several customers gave a nearly unanimous response.

"This place smells divine," said Rocky Face resident Debbie Wolf. "I can hardly wait to try the cookies."

Wolf was just one of many people who came to the grand opening of the new Crumbl Cookies store in Dalton's Walnut Square Shopping Center on West Walnut Avenue, which is also home to Food City.

Owner Jim Ward said there's a reason the store smells so great.

"We are a scratch kitchen," he said. "We make all of our frostings, all of our doughs, fresh from scratch every day, and we make them throughout the day. These are the best cookies in the world."

The kitchen was bustling on the day of the grand opening, with what appeared to be almost a dozen people busily making doughs and frostings and baking cookies.

Ward, who is from East Brainerd, Tennessee, said the Dalton store is his fourth. The others are in Cleveland, Tennessee, East Brainerd and Hixson, Tennessee.

"Dalton has been on our radar for some time," he said. "We knew this would be a good city to be a good place to be in. It was just a matter of finding the right location. We think this is a great place. There's a lot of activity here. But it's easy for our customers to get in and get their cookies and get back out."

The shop offers a consistently rotating selection of cookies, including more than 200 flavors such as chocolate chip, cookies & cream, s'mores, key lime pie, peppermint, caramel popcorn, brownie and sugar cookies. Customers can check out each week's menu at the store's website (https://crumblcookies.com/gadalton).

Ward said the store's signature cookie is the milk chocolate chunk cookie.

Ward said Crumbl Cookies was begun in 2017 in Logan, Utah, by cousins Jason McGowan, now chief executive officer, and Sawyer Hemsley, chief operating officer. In five years it became a franchise with more than 600 locations in 47 states.

The cookies are sold in pink boxes containing four, six or 12 cookies. Its website said each cookie flavor is tested repeatedly by customers, and only those with the highest taste ratings are added to the menu.

Dalton resident Jim Sailer said he heard about Crumbl Cookies through social media.

"I'd never heard about it, but several of my friends began sharing that it was going to open in Dalton," he said. "They had been to one of the stores (in Tennessee) and said these were really good."

Were his friends right?

"I just tried a piece of the chocolate cookie, and it was really good," he said. "I'm going to take these home to my kids. I think they'll like them."

Store hours are Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 8 a.m. to midnight. The store is closed on Sunday.