Craveworthy Brands finalized its acquisition of Dirty Dough in September, 2024, adding a treats profile to the platform’s ever-growing portfolio of 17 brands.
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Bennett Maxwell recalls a simple LinkedIn message as his first interaction with Craveworthy Brands CEO and founder Gregg Majewski.
Early into franchising, Maxwell, then the CEO of Dirty Dough, reached out in early 2022 looking to raise capital. A message led to a phone call, with Majewski providing some helpful advice.
“Gregg was brutally honest with me,” Maxwell said. “He told me all the good, the bad and the ugly. What I was doing right, what I was doing wrong and where I was going to fail. I’m like, ‘OK, how do I stay in contact with you?’”
Majewski soon become an adviser on Dirty Dough’s board and later CEO at the end of 2023 when Craveworthy took over management control. Craveworthy decided to buy the company in May of last year and the deal closed in September.
Gregg Majewski is the CEO of Craveworthy Brands.
“We were involved a lot longer than everybody else would have been,” Majewski said. “We were coming at it from a completely different side. For us, it was more of, let’s just keep going, go at a much faster pace than what we were today and see what we can accomplish.”
Dirty Dough, with 80-plus units in more than 23 states, added a treats concept to Craveworthy’s portfolio of 17 brands. Craveworthy has done anything but slow down since, with the multi-restaurant platform company announcing the acquisition of gourmet cinnamon roll concept Kinnamōns and investing in Shaquille O’Neal’s Big Chicken in March.
Majewski formed Craveworthy in early 2023 after acquiring chicken brands Wing It On and The Budlong. It later bought Mongolian Concepts—Genghis Grill, BD’s Mongolian Grill and Flat Top Grill—and purchased Untamed Brands (Taim Mediterranean and Hot Chicken Takeover) and Fresh Brothers Pizza. The company also has a handful of internally developed concepts.
Majewski and Maxwell agreed Dirty Dough is the ticket to expanding into frozen consumer packaged goods.
Dirty Dough stores offer many indulgent cookie flavors.
“If you go to Costco today, or Walmart or Sam’s Club, and you go to the frozen section, there’s no cookie,” Maxwell said. “We want to break into that category.”
The brand started rolling out new menu offerings such as “dirty drinks,” a play on dirty sodas, and is exploring dirty ice cream and a breakfast component in donuts. It’s all part of Craveworthy’s goal to make Dirty Dough “the leader in the treats segment,” said Majewski.
Maxwell still has a heavy hand in Dirty Dough as chairman and has expanded into additional brands as Craveworthy’s director of franchise development.
“He was the one who built it, and that was what makes it important to me,” Majewski said about keeping Maxwell involved. “Otherwise, the company doesn’t have the DNA that is necessary to grow.”
In his development role, Maxwell said the brand’s franchising prowess can spread through the rest of Craveworthy’s portfolio, especially those early into launching their franchise systems.
With steady growth ahead for Dirty Dough, Majewski recognizes the intentional approach needed to enhance the cookie concept’s systems—even if that means slowing things down a bit.
“Whenever I take over a brand, our sales tend to slow down for the beginning stages and then grow at a much faster pace after that because we fix the AUVs, we grow the business, we make everything better,” Majewski said. “It takes us a long time—usually 12 to 18 months—to get things to where we think we should be … so for us, it’s OK to slow down, correct the unit economics and then grow from there. In the Dirty Dough case, that’s exactly what we had to do and what we’ve been focused on.”