A cookie shop whose cookies are brimming with big chunks of chocolate is opening in Dallas' Snider Plaza: Called Ben's Cookies, it's an international chain founded in Oxford, England, that's opening a location at 3406 Rosedale Ave., kitty-corner to Bubba's Cooks Country and across from SMU.

According to owner Truett Horne, the shop will open this weekend.

Horne brought the concept from England to the U.S. in 2022 when he opened the first outlet at Grapevine Mills Mall in Grapevine. This will be his second location.

Ben's cookies follow classic chocolate chip recipes, but instead of chocolate chips, they use big chunks of chocolate.

Staple flavors include milk chocolate chunk, dark chocolate chunk, white chocolate chunk, and double chocolate chunk with chocolate chunks in a chocolate cookie base.

Other flavors include:

• white chocolate & cranberry
• white chocolate & macadamia
• dark chocolate & ginger
• dark chocolate & nuts

There are also non-chocolate-chunk cookies including oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, lemon, ginger, coconut, and a snickerdoodle cookie that Horne introduced in late 2022 which has been a smash hit.

One surprise at the Grapevine shop has been the brisk sales in frozen treats including shakes and ice cream, including their "cookie monster," a decadent combination of cookies and ice cream. They also ship cookies both locally and nationally to Ben's fans across the U.S.

The first Ben's opened in Oxford in 1984; there are now 60 locations across England, Scotland, Singapore, Dubai, Kuwait, Thailand, Korea, the Philippines, and Japan.

Horne discovered the cookies while in college.

"I became familiar with Ben's when I studied abroad in Oxford, home to their first location, and fell in love with their cookies," he says. "They're very focused on ingredients and the process."

Their cookies are big, and in the span of soft to crisp, they fall on the cakey side. "They say that, if a cookie and a cake had a baby, it would be Ben's," says Horne, a former marketing exec who worked for companies like JCPenney and McKinsey & Co.

Finding a family-friendly location was a priority, which is what led to Snider Plaza, where the shop is going into a former daycare center which has been completely remodeled.

"I like that Snider Plaza has a sense of heritage, with long-standing retailers who've been tenants for a while," he says. "Being across from SMU means that we can serve the college community, I think that will be fun."

"And this felt like the right place, like it was made for us," he says. "It's a brick building and aesthetically it feels perfect. It just feels like a bakery."