Michelle Clipp, a 35-year-old married Jacksonville mother of two children under the age of 3, developed a taste for entrepreneurship.
After 13 years in health care sales leadership that required travel and with a desire to work more closely with her San Marco neighborhood, Clipp is venturing into the first Florida franchise for an Alabama-based cookie company.
That is Cookie Fix, a Birmingham shop that opened in 2016 and now has two corporate stores in its home state and one in Atlanta. There are six franchised locations throughout the South in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.
“Our target market is anyone with taste buds,” Clipp said.
The city issued a permit July 7 for Interior Buildouts Inc. of Jacksonville to build-out 1,184 square feet of space at 2020 Hendricks Ave. at a project cost of $190,045. The space, previously leased to Post-Moderne interior design and decorating, is between Sage Creative Co. and Posting House.
Harbinger, the sign contractor, will put up the name. The city issued that permit July 15.
Clipp expects a grand opening in October.
The site is across San Marco Boulevard from the East San Marco shopping center, where Crumbl Cookies, a national franchise whose more than 1,000 stores include four in Northeast Florida, operates.
The competition doesn’t worry Clipp.
“We have a different product,” she said.
“Cookie Fix cookies are a family recipe. The texture sets Cookie Fix apart.”
Clipp said the recipes and baking process yield “a unique, tall cookie that’s crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside.”
About the cookies
Cookie Fix bakes its products on-site and offers cookie bars and cakes, corporate orders and seasonal desserts plus catering and bagging products for parties, weddings, showers and other occasions.
It also offers dough to go that allows customers to bake cookies at home in 11-12 minutes.
Founders Amy and David Jason have developed more than 80 flavors for the rotating menu, with 10 to 12 available at a time. Clipp said the best-sellers are the Blondie Crunch with white chocolate chips, pretzel pieces, Heath bar pieces and sea salt as well as the Chocolate Chip, with semi-sweet chocolate and sea salt.
Her favorite is the Healthy Peanut Butter. Made without flour, the cookie contains oats, peanut butter, sugar and semisweet chips.
Other corporate favorites are the Billionaire (chocolate chips, caramel bit marshmallows, peanut butter chips and sea salt); the Brown Sugar Blondie; the Funfetti (with sprinkles and topped with a vanilla glaze); and the First Date (heavy on the chocolate chips with sea salt).
The dough, proprietary to the Jasons, will be trucked to Jacksonville twice a month.
Clipp will be a baker and intends to hire two more for full- and part-time hours. She intends to hire four to six full- and part-time front-of-house employees.
At Cookie Fix, Clipp said customers will be greeted in front of the counter – not from behind it – and offered help to learn about the offerings. That will build brand awareness since the shop is the first in the state.
Hours will be 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Saturday, while closing Sunday. Operating hours may change with the season.
There will be a display case and drinks to go. There likely will be a bench outside for seating.
The first taste
Clipp ate her first Cookie Fix cookies when her brother’s girlfriend introduced the products to the family at their first meeting in 2017. The couple lived in Birmingham.
“It became a thing,” Clipp said, and her now sister-in-law made sure to keep the family supplied during visits here and there. Clipp would patronize the company’s first shop in Homewood, Alabama.
When informed that Amy Jason was franchising, Clipp emailed her, they talked and “we hit it off.” That was January 2024.
Clipp’s mentor at GE HealthCare left in December 2023 to start a new venture. “It got my wheels turning as well,” she said.
She took steps toward entrepreneurship, including site selection and business planning.
Having grown up on Fleming Island in Clay County, Clipp recalls attending events in San Marco and she and her family now live in the neighborhood. So the location made sense.
She looked in San Marco Square. The right-size space wasn’t available, but she was directed to nearby landlord Evoco Enterprises LLC. It had the desired 1,200-square-foot shop, but the lease wasn’t up for renewal until this September.
Clipp worked with the Small Business Development Center at the University of North Florida, where senior small business consultant Marge Cirillo introduced her to networking.
“Then David, my husband, said, ‘Are we going to do this?’”
The new landlord emailed that the shop space was coming available early. Amy Jason at Cookie Fix approved of it.
“That encouraged me to kick into high gear” about a year ago, Clipp said.
She gave herself November-December 2024 to work on her business plan while continuing her job.
Clipp, a University of Florida graduate with a marketing degree in 2012 and an MBA in 2019, talked with banks, accountants and lawyers “to make sure I was making an informed decision.”
Cirillo introduced her to Pineland Bank in Fernandina Beach, which took on Clipp’s SBA loan with a letter of commitment in December.
The loan was closed in May after Clipp signed her lease in March.
She has a five-year lease with options to match the loan.
Taking the final step into business, Clipp has resigned from GE HealthCare after 13 years, where she most recently led a team of 12 sales professionals serving a four-state market in anesthesia, maternal infant care, patient monitoring and diagnostic cardiology service lines.
The next step
Signage will be up soon at the San Marco shop, which is in a strip of stores on the west side of Hendricks Avenue.
While Cookie Fix can take advantage of about 10 parking spaces along Hendricks Avenue, the available lot across the street at Publix-anchored East San Marco also sweetens the spot.
Clipp negotiated a protected territory and could add stores, but Clipp said the Jasons’ goals is not to have a shop at every corner.
She expects to work with schools and the neighborhood, community and churches, including some donations.
“We are building a brand from scratch,” she said.
“It’s very scary and a big risk, but I am betting on myself.”