The Pioneer Woman Wants to Stock Her New Hotel Rooms with Fresh Cookies

In the process of planning her new hotel, the Boarding House, Ree Drummond has been thinking back on what she likes to do in hotels, and what she likes to experience when she travels. Appropriately enough for a Food Network star, Drummond says one of the first things she does in a hotel room is check out the mini bar.

“When I travel here and there, I like checking into my hotel room and nestling in (and, figuratively, sucking my thumb.)” she wrote next to an Instagram photo of some cookies sprinkled with colorful nonpareils. “Part is my holing-up ritual is surveying the mini-bar snacks that are going to be part of my stay, and I have seen an enormous range of options, from single bags of M&M’s to cans of cashews to Dean & Deluca chocolate covered caramels.”

The Pioneer Woman built her brand on being extremely relatable, and it’s pretty much a universal human experience that the very first thing a person does upon entering a hotel room is check out the mini bar. I was never allowed to buy anything from the mini bar as a kid, but I had to just look! Now that I’m an adult, it’s still the first thing I do when I stay at a hotel. I almost never buy anything, because mini bar prices are outrageous, but I always need to check, just in case.

Now it sounds like the Pioneer Woman is planning on seriously upgrading the mini bar experience at her new hotel, the Boarding House. Instead of packages of trail mix and M&Ms that cost more than an entire movie theater concession stand, she wants to stock her room with special homemade snacks like these sprinkle cookies. She’s also thinking about adding things like fruit, toffee, homemade chips, and jalapeño cheese straws.

“For our Boarding House, as impractical as it sounds, I want to place special, homemade snacks in the rooms for folks that like to nestle in like I do,” she wrote. “These sprinkle cookies are one of my ideas, along with good fruit, toffee, homemade chips, jalapeño cheese straws, and other goodies. Are you a partaker of hotel mini bar treats? It always amazes me that a little package of M&M’s can cost upwards of $9,000.”

Replacing the mini bar with homemade cookies might be the best idea the Pioneer Woman has ever had. Stocking rooms with perishable snacks like fresh cookies seems like it might be a logistical hurdle for a hotel to tackle: Will they be complimentary, or will there be an extra charge? What happens to them if they aren’t eaten? But I’m sure they can figure that out, and having homemade cookies in the room does seem like a very Pioneer Woman touch.

Do you ever go for the mini bar?