Business grows for Edmonds baker after ‘Build the Wall’ cookie

The cookie in question on a counter in the Edmonds Bakery.

It has been a week since the Edmonds baker who wrote “Build the Wall” on a Valentine’s Day cookie went viral on the internet, and while his online reputation might be down, his business is not.

“I have so many new customers,” said Ken Bellingham, owner of Edmonds Bakery. “I did as much stuff as I did on Saturday, which is our best day, and we’ve done better than that.”

Bellingham said since his pro-wall cookie went viral, his business has tripled and some of his new customers have traveled far and wide to support his business.

“Two ladies drove yesterday from Spokane just to come to the bakery,” he said.

With orders coming in from across the U.S., Bellingham said his business is currently too small to accommodate orders coming in from as far as New Jersey and upstate New York.

“I can’t even do the ones to be picked up tomorrow,” he said.

What some people could not understand is how a Valentine’s Day cookie became a platform for a debate on a border wall. Bellingham, who stated he is not political, said the message on the cookie was meant to be a joke with his family.

“My daughter-in-law is political,” he said. “And her daughter and her were teasing each other back and forth while I was writing funny sayings on the cookies, and that one just came up.”

Bellingham said it was not his intention for the pro-wall cookie to go into the display case, but said he still sees no harm in it.

“The joke was writing it on a cookie, a Valentine cookie,” he said. “Isn’t that kind of random?”

In the wake of the initial, single cookie decorated with the signature phrase coined by President Trump during his election campaign, more cookies have been decorated as a response to the public outrage.

In response to outrage over his “Build the Wall” cookie, Ken Bellingham responded with a follow-up message.

“I’m Offended” and “Lighten Up” have replaced “Build the Wall” in the bakery’s display case in what Bellingham said was his creative outlet in response to the backlash.

Another cookie — reading “I Love Tacos” —  was circulated recently on Facebook as evidence of Bellingham’s lack of remorse. But Bellingham said this was incorrect and that the cookie’s message was not a racist comment about Latinos, but a slang sexual reference.

“Some (cookies) are a little risque,” he said. “I try to be funny.”

Contrary to the allegations he is a racist, Bellingham said he is a devout Christian who goes on mission trips to an orphanage in Mexico with his church twice a year.

“We dig ditches, we paint buildings, we did a water-treatment filter system,” he said. “We go out to the surrounding villages and ask people if they want prayer.”

After a week of both online criticism and financial success, Bellingham said he still cannot understand how the single cookie that began as a joke with his family could offend so many people. He also said he wished the woman who posted the photo of the “Build the Wall” cookie would have approached him instead of posting the photo online.

“This whole deal, I didn’t ask for it,” he said. “If she would have come to me with a complaint about this cookie I would have done something about it. I want to make sure people are happy when they leave here.”

–Story and photos by Cody Sexton

    1. That’s unfortunate, I think that is a pretty low bar to decide to fully cut off a business for.

      The thing I like most about Edmonds is that it is an intelligent and compassionate community. If you want to be ‘outraged,’ save it for something really worth being outraged over, like the White Supremacist radical group flyers spread around Edmonds recently. Spending your moral condemnation over a nice business with a bad joke cookie is a waste.

  1. I think it’s great. He made a joke. All these PC people need to get over it, and i say that as a green card carrying immigrant.

  2. You claim to be Christian, but yet you write on cookie how you love vagina. This is not the first time. The “excitement” will die down and so will your finances. Everyone of your neighbors knows who you are and what you REALLY stand for.

    1. Part of the problem in Washington state is that the general public is totally uninformed about what goes on at the border. Women and children are taken across the border everyday and put into the sex trade, or they work in the factories in South Texas. I lived in New Mexico for 25 years, I knew border patrol agents, these horrific things are true. If women really cared about their fellow women, and young children, they would be up in arms about the border. Forget about Trump and his dialogue, get informed.

      1. I somewhat agree with Patti Hansen. I am from New Mexico (I’m hispanic and my entire family was born in the US) and people who live along the southern border have no idea just how bad it is. I do have empathy for the children and innocent individuals that are truly coming over for a better life but the number of individuals who are pretending to come over for better opportunities are way more than the media report. I’d like for the people who think letting all these people in our country is ok to travel down to the border states and take a first hand look at what is going on before they condemn what the Border Patrol and others are trying to protect.

        I’m also picking up my cookies today! Yum!

  3. Every person that supports this $5.7 billion down payment on a worthless wall needs to pay for it. Build a wall between Washington and Canada. The environmental and financial damage to the border states and this country runs into over $100 billion. Laugh all you want, but this is not a laughing matter. Put your billions of dollars where your humor is.

    1. President Obama built 126 miles of “the wall” his last year in office. He built hundreds and hundreds of miles of “the wall” throughout his tenure as President.
      So, I guess you hate President Obama, as much as you hate President Trump.
      Canadians do not cross illegally into our country.
      $ 5.7 Billion from the Federal budget is a but drop in the bucket. We just gave Mexico over $ 10 Billion. We give away hundreds of Billions every year.

  4. I bought a dozen donuts on Tuesday. Stopped by on Monday but they were closed. So made two trips, and I gave the donuts away. I can’t stand intolerance on the left or the right.

  5. People who eat lots of refined sugars tend to have more health complications and die sooner. Eat cookies at your own risk. This is a joke (or is it) – just like the owner’s joke (or is it). “All the world is birthday cake so take a piece but not too much.” George Harrison

  6. Been an Edmond’s Bakery customer for over 25 years! Go Ken Go! don’t let anybody hold you back – say what you want when you want – isn’t that Free Speech? i cant wait to see what you come up with next for people to be upset with!

  7. Edmonds Bakery must be doing something right (or should I say proper) since it’s been around for 26 years in it’s current ownership. I’m with Mr. Cooper above, intolerance is intolerance no matter where it comes from. We are “intolerant” of intolerance, so to speak. If a little Right leaning cookie philosophy brought Edmonds some business from Spokane, I say “bring it on.” Do I see a Spokane branch of Edmonds Bakery in the very near future? You Rock, Ken.

  8. I’m going to buy a cookie. If I don’t like what it says I’ll choose another. Attempting to wreck someone’s business is wrong.

  9. People who know how to evoke the wrath of the social media bullies to destroy the reputation and/or business of one of us is surely Un-American! As the TV pundits often say “That’s not who we are!”.

  10. “Lighten up” is perfect for those in this Country, State, County and this City who
    have a problem with a statement on a cookie!

  11. It’s become very fashionable nowadays to accuse people of racism. Also, white supremacy, male toxicity and fascism have become very popular pejoratives as well. There are many more.
    There are no jokes, disagreements, comments or anything, however trivial, that can’t be twisted into a racial, social, ethnic slur or some other ,usually nasty, “…ism” or “…ist”. If someone hears a comment, an opinion, a joke, or anything that they else might remotely disagree with, they are provoked to outraged indignation. Someone baked a cookie that says something I don’t agree with? That baker is a bad person and we should lynch him or do something equally disagreeable!
    Joe McCarthy, who found Communists under every carpet or the Witch Hunters of 17th century Salem would be proud.
    For those people who are actively searching for bigots, hate mongers and the like, I recommend that first they look in the mirror.

  12. great bakery, I ordered 2 dozen…I think it’s ridiculous to for a “build a wall” saying would be a big deal. We should ALL want a country. A country MUST HAVE borders. I can’t imagine thinking that statement is prejudice in any way. I think people want to “stir the pot” and the media jumps in with both feet to help tell people what is right and wrong. No free thinking…

  13. As a legal immigrant (from the EU), I agree that it’s of utmost importance to secure a country’s borders. Just google what happened in the EU in 2015. Millions of mostly African muslim men flooded the EU, most of them wanting to end up in the countries with the best social systems (Germany, France, Sweden, etc.). It was a nightmare! My brother lives over there. The women/girls couldn’t leave their homes for fear of being accosted by muslim men. Crime increased, anger built up. But I am not particularly concerned about the southern border with Mexico. It seems that Americans worry about the Mexican border too much, and ignore other illegal immigration, such as SE Asians who come in troves, in shipping containers up and down the West Coast. Also certain ethnicities coming via Canada, a trickle, but a continuous trickle that can eventually turn into a flood…. I also want to state that I have hired a lot of Mexican workers for landscaping and other such jobs, and found them to be good workers and reasonably priced. It’s not my job to ask them uncomfortable questions; I expect INS to take care of business. Also, my best tenant is Mexican, been in the unit for 10 years, and I couldn’t ask by a better tenant. So I am not jumping on Trump’s “Build the Wall” bandwaggon.

    1. The purpose of a wall is not to keep out all immigrants; its purpose is to help keep out illegal immigrants.

      1. Ron, exactly the point. There is a legal way to come to the US, and any other way is illegal.

        Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó has explained how Hungary slashed illegal immigration by building strong border barriers and praised U.S. President Donald Trump in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News.
        Hungary, a conservative-led Central European country with a population of around ten million, found itself overwhelmed in late 2015 when Germany’s Angela Merkel took it upon herself to invite millions of migrants to the European Union unilaterally.
        Hundreds of thousands surged across Hungary’s southern frontier — one of the EU’s external borders — trampling farmers’ crops and stealing food from vegetable patches and greenhouses. Some later turned out to be radical Islamic terrorists, including over ten of the jihadists involved in the Bataclan massacre in Paris.
        “It was terrible, there were 400,000 illegal migrants violating our border, and violation of a border means disrespect towards a country,” Mr Szijjártó told Breitbart’s Amanda House.
        “They have rejected any kind of co-operation with the local authorities; they have not gone to the designated areas for migrants; they have occupied public areas; they have threatened the people; with their behaviour they have frightened the people,” he added.
        “They have occupied railway stations, blocked railway lines, blocked highways… These people who came to Hungary as illegal migrants showed no respect towards our regulations, towards the way of life of ours, towards the rules of behaviour, towards our culture, towards our people, and this is unacceptable.”

        1. Hungary is also a country where a journalist tripped a refugee, and then was praised by politicians. I don’t think we should use Hungary as an example for what we should aspire to be.

    2. Thank You for your kind words. My parents came here legally too from Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s. There US Naturalized Citizens. I agree that there are other immigrants that comes from diffrent places not just south of the border. I don’t understand why Americans hate Mexican people my people. I’m US born and I feel the hate on them to me and I feel unwanted I feel like I am in the middle of all of this. I feel hopeless and scared.

      1. I can just say that I have nothing against a person simply because they are an immigrant, regardless of what country they came from, as long as they came here legally. And I am not alone; I know many who feel the same way. You’ve, I guess, run into the wrong people who I expect are in the minority.

  14. The fact that Ken is shocked that people are upset by his cookie is hilarious. Free speech allowed him to make that cookie, free speech also allows me to criticize him for it.

  15. I don’t know why your shocked that Ken would be. I’m shocked he got so much publicity. Already been polled to death on ALL the major pollsters. United States citizens WANT a wall. About 75% minimum the last one I saw. So did all our LAST Ten Presidents. So he makes a cookie supporting it and only a couple (and I mean very few) don’t agree and it makes front page news. Odd to me.

  16. Call Edmonds Bakery..I’m not sure he ships but I called and am picking them up. Buy the way, his cookies are excellent.

  17. Social media….you have to love it. People get beat up for exercising their constitutional rights. It’s like gang mentality. I’m not necessarily in favor of a wall but respect Ken’s right to sell his cookies.
    Ironically, some here that show their support for “the wall” are the same people that don’t understand the Black Lives Matter debate. Coincidence?

  18. Does anyone see the irony in the position taken by the “I’m offended and discrimination claimers”?

    A bakery doesn’t bake a cake for a small minority (gay wedding), due to his personal beliefs and the left get’s him shut down, publicly shamed and bankrupt.

    A bakery actually makes a baked good (cookie) for a small minority (according to the left), due to his personal beliefs and the left wants him shut down, shamed and couldn’t care less if he goes broke defending himself.

    Something seems odd to me.

  19. I am with Hungary and the Hungarians! Americans should scrutinize what happened there in 2015, as described by one commenter. In another decade or two, the population of Africa will double. Most of them will try to come to Europe and the U. S. Get ready! That continent is bursting at the seams; apparently, they haven’t been introduced to birth control. Not even Bill & Melinda Gates have the resources for that onslaught. Of course, it’s against their religion to use birth control. Many Christians also think it is, because somewhere in the Bible it says, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Well, how many people lived on this planet when that was written? Anybody know? Never mind, you don’t read, you are too busy procreating….

    1. Two things:
      1. The Hungarians, and the rest of Europe, are in a spiral of declining population and have actually just announced a program of multiple rewards for families who have 4 or more children.
      2. The Hungarian people are a very religious people.
      3. Some definitions you might want to learn:

      big·ot·ry
      /ˈbiɡətrē/Submit
      noun
      intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.

      in·tol·er·ance
      /ˌinˈtäl(ə)rəns/Submit
      noun
      unwillingness to accept views, beliefs, or behavior that differ from one’s own.

      Signed, a religious, tolerant mother of 5

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