People in Manhattan are lining up to try gooey cookies stuffed with unique flavors

  • Chip started in Queens, New York, in 2017, and while it's opened four locations since, including a now closed stall at Gansevoort Market, none have successfully left the borough.
  • New Chip locations consistently opens to long lines, giving out free cookies & prizes on opening day to their loyal fanbase.
  • Between it's stores, Chip sells 1,000 to 1,500 cookies on an average day.
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Following is a transcript of the video.

Lisa Paradise: Chip makes one thing, and they make it right: cookies.

Customer: Like three hours. 

Lisa: You've been in line for three hours for cookies?

Customer: yeah, definitely worth it. 

Lisa: And with lines like this, it's no wonder it makes it on to basically every best-of list in New York. With three stores across Queens, we stopped by as Chip opened its first Manhattan storefront in mid-October, with customers waiting hours to get their hands on cookies. If you're looking for a giant, ooey-gooey cookie, Chip is an Instagram staple with a cult following. But until now, they haven't really been available in Manhattan. So, of course, we had to go to their first Manhattan brick and mortar, talk to the people waiting in this massive line to get the first cookies straight out of the oven, and, of course, try them. But before we do that, we're gonna bump over to their Queens bakery and see how these things are made. So let's do it.

Chip first opened its doors in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens in 2017, intending to be a small, local bakery. But in the two years since, it's opened three Queens locations. Now it's finally opened it first brick and mortar in Manhattan, with lines literally stretching around the block. Chip cookies are born here, at the warehouse bakery in Queens where bakers pump out 25,000 cookies each week, which are then shipped out to storefronts where they're baked fresh for serving. Chip cookies are defined by their gooey fillings. Today the kitchen was churning out peanut butter and jelly for opening day, and I got to help. Each ingredient is meticulously weighed and mixed in these massive mixers, then scooped up with an oversized ice cream scoop one by one and filled.

Andrea Prunella: This is one of our more difficult cookies to make because it is a peanut butter base with grape jelly in the center. So, the first step is to take a nice hunk of dough and then flatten your scoop out completely. And then we're gonna take our thumb, and we're gonna make a nice cavity right in the center.

Lisa: That's 26-year-old Andrea Prunella, the mother of each and every Chip flavor.

Andrea: We thought it was gonna be a small cookie shop, just hanging out. Peter and Teddy are local Astorians, and they wanted to open a bakery that had huge cookies that wowed the customer. That's all they knew. They have no pastry background. They just knew they wanted to open up a great bakery. And I was like, these cookies are amazing, I just want to be part of your business. And I gave them my résumé, I was like, "I'll wash dishes if need be." They said, "Come, join us, be our pastry chef." And we went from there. We've kind of grown it ever since.

Lisa: That is why you knock on doors, people.

Andrea: Yes, always.

Lisa: So, how did you come up with this process of making these, like, filled cookies?

Andrea: When we created Chip, we wanted to reimagine what a cookie is. I usually start by trying to figure out some of the most popular flavors of my childhood and the childhood that the people around me experienced.

Lisa: What was the first flavor you developed?

Andrea: So, I developed four in my first week. It was chocolate chip, s'mores, blueberry cheesecake, and peanut butter chocolate.

Lisa: And how many flavors have you created since then?

Andrea: We have about 35 now.

Lisa: Wow.

Andrea: Yeah, we have a lot of flavors.

Lisa: So, you're opening this store in the West Village, where these cookies are going to.

Andrea: Yes.

Lisa: And it's your fourth store in two years.

Andrea: We started out with our first store on 30th Avenue in Astoria, and we couldn't fulfill the demand. So we had to open up a second store, and then we couldn't fulfill the demand for the second store. And we've just kind of kept going. And our customers are so loyal and so passionate about the product that it's allowed us to continue to open more and more stores and grow very quickly.

Lisa: I mean, I feel like people outside of New York don't necessarily know that there is, I think for us, a really big difference between Queens and Manhattan.

Andrea: I think that we're going to find a clientele that expects a lot of us, and we're gonna have to meet that expectation every single time.

Lisa: Picky clientele didn't seem to be a problem opening day, with lines stretching from the front door, around the corner, and down the street, with customers old and new.

Customer: My dad, he loves cookies. So, he found the place, and then he told me about it, and then — we always go to Chip, all the time. 

Lisa: And how important was it for you to be first in line? 

Customer: One hundred percent important, like, it was a priority. 

Customer: I would go to the Astoria and LIC locations. But now I'm in West Village a lot because I have a lot of favorite places here. This is now my vice neighborhood, because everything I want to eat is here.

Customer: When I started following them on Instagram a while back, it was in Queens, the main location, so I wasn't able to go out there. And now it's here in the city. It is so good.

Lisa: Can you tell me what it tastes like? 

Customer: Heaven. 

Lisa: OK, I'm so excited because after all of this time, all of this work, all of the waiting, I finally got my hands on some Chip cookies. And I am just gonna dig straight in, because I cannot wait any longer to try these. I am, of course, going to start with the peanut butter and jelly cookie, because this is the one that I made with a little bit of Andrea's help in the bakery in Queens. Oh, my God. I do not like things that are flavored like peanut butter and jelly. It doesn't even taste like a cookie; it just tastes like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the bread. It is so good. We cannot leave without trying the original cookie, the king of cookies, the OG, the GOAT, the chocolate chip cookie. It is literally the size of my hand. And it's also a lot cakier than I thought it was gonna be. I've never had a cookie that's this spongy before. I feel like if I don't hold it on the outside, and if I hold it in the middle, my finger will go straight through it, which could be a good thing, could be a bad thing, but we're gonna find out, because I'm going to eat this now. You guys, there are so many chocolate chips in here that every single bite, my mouth is coated in milk chocolate to the point that I almost can't talk to you right now. It's crazy, it's delicious, it's gooey. It tastes like cake and a cookie. I am in love with this. I'm gonna keep eating it. I'll talk to you later. These cookies smell like what I want my kitchen, you know when you, like, come home after long day and, like, you smell your home. This is, like, what I want my home to smell like.

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