After King Soopers union employees at 77 stores along the Front Range went on strike on Thursday, the Girl Scouts of Colorado decided to honor the strike and lost a key venue for cookie sales.

Due to the labor strike, many customers are looking elsewhere to buy their beloved Girl Scout cookies, and many trooops have found new places to set up outdoor booths.

Boulder-based Troop 3010 sold cookies outside Silver Vines Winery near the Pearl Street Mall on Saturday, for example. The troop, which is made up of 18 high schoolers, sold Tagalongs, Thin Mints, Samoas and other classic varieties to mall pedestrians.

To help the Girl Scouts, the winery printed up wine pairing guides for cookies, including one featured pairing with a Sauvignon Blanc and Lemon-Ups.

Silver Vines Winery reached out to Troop 3010 after troop leader Julie Dye made a Facebook post about the strike.

“Girl Scouts and the community are sort of partners together,” Dye said. “We support our community, and the community supports us. I think most people recognize that they’re not just buying a box of cookies — they’re supporting an organization that is making the world a better place.”

A week into the selling season, Dye is feeling the pressure, especially with 4,000 boxes of cookies in her living room.“It’s a little more stressful for the adults, I think,” she said.

Dye said Super Bowl Sunday is always the biggest day for cookie sales. What would have been an opportunity to sell hundreds of boxes of cookies outside a King Soopers isn’t possible in Boulder this year, because of the strike, she said. The troop typically sets up booths at all of Boulder’s King Soopers stores.

“It’s a hard one to lose, for sure,” Dye said of the Super Bowl Sunday sales. “That loss of the big day has to be picked up. It might take three or four other booths to make up for that one time.”

This year, Troop 3010 is also selling cookies on University Hill and at McGuckin Hardware in Boulder. The troop will also be at Safeway starting Feb. 17. Going forward, the group will be on the lookout for more vendor locations to make up for the loss of King Soopers sales.

“I’ve definitely sold a lot within my theatre troupe,” said Troop 3010 member Finn Hughes, a sophomore at Boulder High School.

Ren Dye, a 15-year-old Scout in the troop, said some customers have praised the Scouts for avoiding King Soopers during the strike.

“We usually sell at a lot of different locations, plus King Soopers,” Ren said. “We adapt to a lot of different situations. We’ve sold in the pandemic, so we’re pretty used to selling wherever.”

In response to the strike, King Soopers officials put out a statement that said the period for Girl Scouts to sell cookies outside the stores will be extended through March 16. The company is also making a $15,000 donation to the Girl Scouts of Colorado, the statement said.

“The Girl Scouts have been a longtime fixture in front of our stores, and we know how important cookie sales are to supporting their programs and leadership development,” King Soopers president Joe Kelley said in the statement.

This weekend, the second graders of Lafayette-based Troop 75990 sold cookies outside of the Boulder REI at 1789 28th St. Colleen Cheatham, a troop parent, said Saturday brought a lot of customers to their booth.

“Even if they aren’t purchasing, they’re still very kind and supportive to the girls,” Cheatham said.

This is Troop 75990’s third season selling at the Boulder REI. This is the first year that other troops have reached out to the store to ask if they can sell there, too, according to Cheatham.

“We’re lucky to have already had this set up before the season started,” Cheatham said. “There are other troops, I think, that are really hurting, though.”

In a normal season, the troop would primarily sell cookies at the Louisville King Soopers, where union workers are on strike. In addition to REI, Troop No. 75990 is considering other unique sales venues, such as restaurants and the Boulder County Fairgrounds.

“In general, people are just kind of getting creative this year,” Cheatham said.

In Longmont, where the King Soopers stores are not unionized and workers are not striking, Girl Scouts sold cookies outside of all three King Soopers stores on Saturday — at 1611 Pace St.; at 2255 Main St.; and at 995 S. Hover St.

The strike covers an estimated 10,000 employees at all unionized King Soopers stores throughout Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson counties and the cities of Boulder and Louisville.