The second I set foot in The Warming House on Grand Avenue, the sweet smell of fresh brownies greeted me.

Officially known as The Warming House by Original Hockey Mom Brownies, the shop was opened recently by mother and son duo Patti and Andrew Howard. It is the only brownie-exclusive shop in Minnesota. The menu, mostly designed by Patti Howard who also serves as the chief baker of the business, offers numerous flavors such as s’mores, snickers, mint and peanut butter, with gluten-free brownies available as well.

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Gabriel Holte

Brownies from The Warming House are served either warm or chilled, and multiple flavor combinations are offered.

The brownies are offered either chilled, room temperature or warmed. I ordered a warmed s’mores brownie a le mode, which is a s’mores brownie with marshmallow fluff and graham cracker crumbles in it. The brownie was sweet, all of the flavors balancing together perfectly.

Hamline senior Gwen Fairlie, who has eaten at The Warming House, describes the flavor of the brownies as very rich.

“You definitely just need one to fill you up,” Fairlie said.

Howard’s menu also includes many seasonal flavors such as white chocolate brownies topped with fruit flavorings during the summer.

“Basically what we do is we just take the flavors, and I just kind of think about how I would want to eat that flavor. And that’s how we design brownies,” Howard said.

The business has designed numerous brownies for weddings, most notably for a bride who comes from a family of beekeepers.

“We used their naturally harvested Minnesota grown honey,” Howard said.  “Its a honey and white chocolate-based brownie with a light creamy topping, and their honey drizzled on top with granola.”

The business was born after Howard frequently made brownies for her son and his hockey team, hence the Hockey Mom name. Eventually, Howard’s son suggested that they box and sell the brownies.

For the past three years, Original Hockey Mom’s brownies have been the official brownie of the Minnesota Wild and are sold at the Xcel Energy Center in St Paul.

The brownies are also sold at numerous fairs such as the Anoka and Carver county fairs, food truck festivals and even had a pop-up store at the Mall of America.

“The final goal is to get to the State Fair and hopefully that will happen soon,” Howard said.

After these multiple successes, Howard then wanted to take her and her son’s business to a more centralized location where they would be more easily accessible. However, they had trouble finding the perfect location.

“Three days after we gave up the search, our real estate agent called us and said ‘I have a spot you have to look at,’ so here we are. It turned out really good,” Howard said

The Warming House is located at 1700 Grand Ave and has hours from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays.