For Levain Bakery Co-Founder Connie McDonald, Cookies Were a Plot Twist

When Connie McDonald and her business partner Pam Weekes decided to start a food business 40 years ago, they had no idea just how far the cookie would crumble.

After a short-lived run on Wall Street, McDonald turned to culinary school. “I was probably the most unsuccessful person to ever work in finance in New York City,” she told Female Foodie.

McDonald enrolled in Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School, which became the Institute of Culinary Education in 2001. “On my first day, I discovered bread baking and absolutely fell in love,” she explained.

Today, Levain is a cookie conglomerate with 20 locations across seven states. In 2023 alone, Levain was featured on TikTok 44.3 million times — more than any other bakery in the country.

Happy Accidents

McDonald and Weekes opened Levain on West 74th Street in 1995. At first, the store only sold bread, building off of a wholesale business McDonald had started after culinary school. Developing the recipe for what would become one of the country’s most beloved cookies was an accident born of necessity.

McDonald and Weekes are passionate marathoners, and in the early days of Levain Bakery they were dreaming up snacks to fuel their carb-loading needs. Along the way, they stumbled on the ultimate chocolate chip walnut cookie.

“It’s a pretty simple, straightforward cookie,” McDonald said. “The thing we played around with the most was the size.”

Size Matters

Each cookie at Levain weighs exactly half a pound, which might seem totally normal today, but was rare and indulgent at the time.

The 1990s was also a different era, technology-wise. “There were barely cellphones, there was no internet, there was nothing,” McDonald recalls. As such, it took time for the scrappy bakery to grow into the cookie empire it is today.

Slow & Steady Won the Race

“Slow, steady growth has been the foundation of the strength of the bakery,” McDonald Told Inc Magazine. In fact, the business’s big break — a feature article in The New York Times — didn’t come until two years after opening. The lines formed overnight.

Fast forward to 2018: McDonald and Weekes accepted an investment offer from the growth equity firm Stripes, which also invests in food brands like Erewhon and Pop-Up Bagels. 

McDonald and Weekes have plans to grow the brand further, but never at the cost of the core business. “The bakery means so much to both of us. There was no way we were going to rush into a situation that would damage the brand, hurt our employees, or do anything that would change what we had built,” McDonald explained on The Skimm podcast.

Compromising quality was another line in the sand.

“Nearly 30 years later, our cookies are still freshly baked every day at each of our bakeries,” McDonald told Hamptons lifestyle magazine, James Lane Post. It’s wise advice for any aspiring food entrepreneur dreaming of creating a lasting brand.

Most of all, however, McDonald and Weekes have stayed true to form: baking exceptional cookies. Despite success they could easily rest on, they continue to imagine new and delicious cookies daily. In September, they released a seasonal New York-inspired black and white cookie. (It’s hefty, of course, with dark cocoa and white chocolate chunks.)

“That’s the key to the success,” McDonald said on The Skimm podcast. “We did something that we both loved and still do.”

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