The Toll House Inn

The Best Known Chocolate Chip Cookie Origin Story Is a Myth | Eater

"Founded in 1930 during the Depression in Whitman, Massachusetts, this famed roadside restaurant became a popular stop for travelers between Boston and Cape Cod and drew celebrity diners like Joseph Kennedy Sr., Cole Porter, Gloria Swanson, Joe DiMaggio, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Desserts were a signature: standout items included a three-inch-tall lemon meringue pie, Indian pudding, baba au rhum, and rich butterscotch pecan rolls that appeared in every breadbasket. One of the menu’s notable offerings was a thin, crispy butterscotch cookie dotted with chunks of semi‑sweet chocolate served alongside ice cream; that recipe was published as “Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies” and later printed on chocolate-bar wrappers after a promotional arrangement with a chocolate maker, which also led to the creation of the teardrop-shaped chocolate morsels. While the establishment popularized the chocolate chip cookie and helped turn a baking shortcut into a national phenomenon, later research shows chocolate‑studded cookies predate its recipe, and the origin myths that the cookie was a hapless accident clash with the founder’s reputation for professionalism and some accounts that she developed the recipe deliberately." - Claudia Geib