Insomnia cookies feed hungry students

Given the store’s odd hours, Lemon says it draws a “colorful” clientele, on both the weekdays and weekends alike.

“It really doesn’t seem like people discriminate a whole lot,” Lemon said. “You get some stumbley people any night of the week.”

While the store’s customers are mostly students, Lemon said that other restaurants’ delivery drivers frequent the truck and call in their own orders between deliveries.

“We get a lot of orders from Jimmy John’s,” he said.

Lemon has operated the Insomnia cookie truck in Ann Arbor for a month, and so far, he said working third shift is the only drawback of the job. He said the cookies he bakes on a nightly basis have also lost some of their appeal.

“They’re not as good as they used to be,” Lemon said. “If I eat more than two a night, that’s not good. I try not to come to work hungry.”

Though some students are willing to trek across campus in the name of snickerdoodle and chocolate chip cookies, Lemon said that as of now, Insomnia cookies isn’t allowed to sell baked goods on University property. He added, however, that an agreement is the works to change that.

“We’ve started working out a deal with U of M to use their parking lots whenever we want,” Lemon said. “The campus police don’t care. They haven’t bothered us. But the company has started talking to U of M, so we’ll give them a portion of the profits (to use the parking lots).”

Regardless of his location, though, since he has come to campus, Lemon has helped satisfy students’ cravings on their way to the library or heading home from the bar.

“I mean, how often do you have the time to bake them yourself?” Lemon said.

Watch a Daily multimedia piece about Kevin Lemon here.