Levain Bakery from New York City is opening in the Bay Area

For years, Bay Area residents craving the frenzy-inducing, oversized chocolate chip-walnut cookies from New York City’s Levain Bakery had to either order them online, or hop on a plane. By next year, they’ll be available closer to home.

Levain will open its first Northern California location at San Jose’s upscale Santana Row in summer 2027, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported. Levain’s six-ounce cookies come in flavors such as caramel coconut chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin and dark chocolate with peanut butter chips. The bakery will take over part of the space last occupied by clothing store Chico⁠’s, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

A representative for Levain did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bakers Connie McDonald and Pam Weekes started Levain in 1995, originally as a bread shop. The cookie was a “happy accident,” the company website reads: The owners, both triathletes, baked a “massive chocolate chip walnut cookie to keep energy levels high for training. A sample batch flew off the bakery shelves, and an icon was born.” 

Levain has since grown to more than 20 locations nationwide, including four California outposts, all in the Los Angeles area. Craze for Levain’s cookies has been amplified by social media, with videos of influencers making the pilgrimage to a bakery and filming decadent shots of cookies breaking open. The bakery once sold smaller frozen cookies in supermarkets nationwide, including Whole Foods, but discontinued the product in 2022 due to rising costs.

When it opens, Levain will join a slate of food and beverage options at Santana Row, which has become a magnet for restaurants over the past few years. Flora, a California-inspired restaurant from a team of local restaurateurs, is also opening soon at the shopping center.