Where Is Gotta Have S'More From Shark Tank Today?

The classic can't-get-enough treat has long been the s'more. In fact, the first-ever s'more recipe dates all the way back to a 1927 Girl Scout handbook, which clearly indicates the toasted dessert is a time-honored sweet. What if you don't like going camping, though?

As recently as the early 2010s, one company, Gotta Have S'more, started taking the s'more out of the wilderness and instead offering it up as a gourmet, indoor snack. Specifically, it sold "S'muffins," which were more like cupcakes than muffins. S'muffins combined the traditional chocolate, graham cracker, and marshmallow with a variety of flavors such as caramel, dark chocolate, and milk chocolate.

Carmen Lindner, the founder and CEO of Gotta Have S'more, appeared on Season 4, Episode 16 of "Shark Tank," offering 25% equity in exchange for a $75,000 investment. Most of the Sharks enjoyed the S'muffins, but none of them wanted any s'more of the company itself. Lindner's expensive plan to extend the venture beyond her home city of Los Angeles and go nationwide, while also getting into wholesale retail, was just too rich for the Sharks' blood. In the end, they all roasted Lindner and turned her down. "You're so in love with your S'muffins," Mark Cuban teased Lindner, "you can't see the dollars for the marshmallows." So, did Lindner's love for S'muffins endure despite this setback?

For most startups, appearing on "Shark Tank" tends to give them a lot of publicity and a bump in sales. Season 4, Episode 16 aired in early 2013. Yet, sometime in 2014, per Voyage LA, Gotta Have S'more was to Annalisa Mastroianni Johnson, the landlady of CEO Carmen Lindner's commercial kitchen space. Taking into account this sale and a general lack of reporting about Gotta Have S'more during 2013, it's safe to assume the venture did not explode in popularity after appearing on TV.

Johnson told Voyage LA she had long believed in the product, regardless. Plus, she was already a successful businesswoman at the time of taking over the s'more company, having started a gourmet meal delivery and catering service that was popular among Hollywood elites. So, when she took control of Gotta Have S'more, she readily applied her expertise to its operations, rebranding the packaging and adding more flavors.

By 2018, Johnson was able to open a brick-and-mortar Gotta Have S'more storefront in Los Angeles, as reported by LA Taco. "L.A. is a trailblazing city for a number of trends in food," she had told Voyage LA just a year earlier. "It's certainly the perfect market to get things started." But did that hold true for Gotta Have S'more?

It seems the "Shark Tank" Sharks were right to say Gotta Have S'More couldn't sustainably expand. On Yelp, customers have reported that the physical shop closed sometime in 2022. A look at its social media platforms paints a somewhat ambiguous picture of the business. 

Gotta Have S'more hasn't posted on Twitter since 2018, but it did post on Instagram and Facebook as recently as 2022. However, the company is still actively selling its products via its e-shop. This includes S'muffins (now just called "S'mores") as well as S'mookies, which are — of course — s'mores and cookies combined.

The Gotta Have S'more website suggests Mastroianni Johnson is still in charge of the business, and her LinkedIn profile backs this up; she's still listed as the company owner. (Still, founder Carmen Lindner's LinkedIn claims she has been CEO of the company since 2009.) Ultimately, this company does not appear to be a "Shark Tank" success story.