Popular Bay Area Cookie Business Batch 22 Is Opening a Los Gatos Shop | Eater SF
"A cult-favorite cookie operation known for extra-thick chocolate chip cookies — nicknamed “pudges” — is opening its first brick-and-mortar after five years operating as a cottage bakery and delivery/pickup service. The cookie delivery darling began in 2020, when baker Amy Wong and partner Lawrance Combs started a cottage bakery at home during the pandemic; Wong is a former marketer turned dough entrepreneur who fell in love with this cookie style on a trip to New York, and Combs runs the business side. With the new storefront opening May 15 the team will be able to bake a lot more, stay open seven days a week, and offer delivery on demand; as co-owner Lawrance Combs says, “Now that it looks immaculate, everybody is walking by the space, checks in, and is like, ‘Can we buy cookies?’” The pudges weigh in at six ounces, easily triple the size of your everyday cookie — “They’re 'big, beautiful cookies, like the size of your palm,'” Wong explains — and are described as having “crisp edges and almost melty centers.” The opening menu will feature half a dozen pudges, “coming out of the gate with some of our heaviest hitters,” including classics like chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin, seasonal treats like strawberries and cream, and Asian American cravings like the purple ube dulcey; they will also reveal one new flavor for the grand opening, a dark chocolate orange “featuring a fudgy dough and bright zest.” There will be a couple of drink options with hot coffee and cold milk. The shop itself is butter-yellow and was designed by Studio Banaa (which has worked with Andytown, Kokak Chocolates, and Sanguchon); Combs describes the vision as “Japanese cartoonish feeling,” meaning clean, minimal, and fun for kids. Wong adds, “We didn’t want every other coffee shop’s aesthetic. We wanted personality.” On the left wall there’s a mural by artist Emily Cheng featuring a character dubbed “the potato chef,” and behind the case a custom wall looks like a massive cookie with a chomp taken out of it. Located in a shopping center alongside Boichik Bagels, Trader Joe’s, and a pilates studio, the new spot will mark a permanent home for the pudges; for the grand opening the bakery will hand out a few hundred mini totes to early customers and run cookie giveaways on Instagram. They’re out of budget to do anything special for their fifth anniversary this May, but a permanent home for the pudges feels like a party. As Wong says about the name, “I love how the name ‘pudge’ has really caught on,” and she recalls a delivery moment: “I rang the doorbell, and she said, ‘Oh, it must be my pudges!’”" - Becky Duffett
