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What started out as a dream between two best friends in Queens, NY has grown into a homemade cookie empire that is ready to make its mark in Maryland.
Chip City, which boasts nearly two dozen locations in the New York City-area announced that it will be taking its boutique cookie shop to Bethesda, with a new location set to open this fall on Elm Street.
The brainchild of CEO Peter Phillips and Teddy Gailas in 2017, Chip City was born when the two began talking about possible business ventures and landed on a small 250-square-foot storefront in Astoria, where they decided to sell cookies after weighing multiple options.
On their first day, the pair didn’t even have a license to sell, Phillips mused, they just planned to give away their product for free to get a feel for the market.
Sure enough, just like that, they had more than 200 people lining up to sample the goods, much more than the duo expected.
“We are both a fan of cookies, so we started something that would connect people with that feeling of nostalgia,” he said. “We had really humble expectations and just wanted tout our best foot forward.
“So we committed to trying something, and it went well, and Chip City was born.”
Utilizing social media and bolstered by favorable reviews, Phillips said that they were able to leverage that early success into a massive cookie enterprise that is poised to expand up and down the East Coast.
“We’ve spent a lot of time on the road looking at places to expand,” Phillips said. “We fell in love with the opportunity (in Bethesda) and was really impressed with the number of people around that location and the other businesses operating in the market.
“It felt like a natural extension… A no brainer. It was very easy.”
Chip City will continue to produce its dough daily at their College Point commissary, which will then be shipped to ensure customers in Maryland can get fresh treats every day with a rotating menu that includes a variety of custom recipes from executive chef Andrea Prunella.
This week’s menu includes milk chocolate chip, red velvet cheesecake, dairy-free chocolate chip, white chocolate macadamia, oatmeal apple pie, and s’mores.
“The great thing about our store is the aroma, that’s a big part of it,” Phillips said. We leave the door open when we can and you can follow your nose into the store.
Once the Bethesda location is up and running, cookie-lovers in the DMV region may not have to wait long to get their chance to sample the baked goods, with other locations in the works in Maryland, Virginia, and possibly Washington, DC, ready to tantalize the senses.
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