Cronk goes global

“I wanted to spread it around, to get people to think, I wanted people to look at the burger and say ‘wait what is that’, why is that sticker there?”

The burger: Cronk. The creator: Riverhead High School graduate Ben Edmund.

Over a hundred Cronk supporters came out to Stotzky Park Thursday night, forming a line that extended half way through the parking lot, to purchase Edmund’s new selection of clothing in his final out-of-trunk sale as Cronk Studios prepares to take off.

Cronk, which stands for Creating Reality On New Knowledge, started out as just a drawing of a burger Ben made one day in Middle School.

“I wanted to make a globally recognized symbol,” he said. “I wanted to create an icon that people would question.”

So the Cronk burger went from a drawing on a piece of paper, to stickers, and now to clothing.

“It means to use the knowledge you learned yesterday to continue to chase your dreams. You’re creating your own reality,” Ben said.

“I wanted to put it on clothing because I knew it would spread quicker,” he said.

And clearly it did. But not beyond his expectations — Ben knew he had a winning idea.

In 2008, the Cronk symbol made its first appearance on a T-shirt by way of acrylic paint and hand-cut stencils.

“I blotted the paint on using stencils,” Edmund said. “I tried to sell them at the high school and everyone was like ‘ehhh I dunno’ but I still ended up giving a few away and some people gave me their shirts to get it painted on.”

It was a start.

But soon after Ben learned how to screenprint and the Cronk Burger quickly became well-known in Riverhead as his sales began to pick up. As demand grew, so did Edmund.

“I ended up really enjoying making clothes,” he said.

Edmund started out just making tee-shirts. Today he produces tank tops, crop tops, T-shirts for men and women and hoodies too.

But there’s still room to expand, Edmund says.

“I want to move into more cut-and-sew and less printed wholesale T-shirts,” he said. “I want to make cut-and-sew pattern T-shirts and really high-quality hoodies.”

Thursday was the last day that Ben will sell his shirts from the back of his 1993 Buick LaSabre, his sixth out-of-trunk sale, because his products will now only be available online and hopefully soon in stores.

His website, Cronkstudios.com, went live last year and he has already sent out shipments to other parts of the country to people he has never heard of. His next step is to find some store shelves to pass along his symbol and idea.

“Once I get the cut-and-sew stuff going, I’m going to travel around the East Coast to promote it,” Ben said.

Starting in Long Island, Brooklyn and Connecticut, Ben plans to shop it around to small boutiques and mom-and-pop shops.

“I’m just going to bring them the shirts, or bring them a portfolio,” said Edmund.

So keep an eye out, the Cronk burger is here to stay.

Photo: Ben Edmund clowns around with a Cronk T last Thursday at Stotzky Park.

RiverheadLOCAL photo by Michael Hejmej

Editor’s note: This story was originally published under an incorrect byline.