The History of Tate’s Bake Shop Cookies

At age 11, Kathleen King began baking cookies to sell at her father’s farm stand in Southampton, New York. She grew her childhood business and by the time she was in high school, she was spending her summers baking 10 hours a day, seven days a week on her family’s farm, North Sea Farms. At the age of 21, King rented her first bakery for $5,000 in 1980 and began wholesaling her creations under the name Kathleen’s Cookies at farm stands. Three years later, she purchased a retail location — Kathleen’s Bake Shop. In 1999, she brought on her bookkeeper and his brother as partners to help her expand her cookie business. However, the partnership quickly turned sour and Tate was marginalized in the running of her own company. While Tate was concerned with product quality, her partners prioritized money, and the venture ended when King took her partners to court. The partners walked away with the right to use the business name while King retained the rights to her property and a third of the company’s debt. She remortgaged the bakeshop that she’d previously paid off and began a new baking venture from the ashes of the old one — Tate’s Bake Shop. According to the company website, she named the new venture in honor of her father. Through her own baking talent and a supportive community, she was able to turn the new shop into a massive success. In 2014, she brought on Riverside Company but stayed on herself to run product development and quality control. Then in 2018, Riverside sold Tate’s Bake Shop to Mondolēz International. Cookie production increased to 1 million cookies per week and the treats are now sold in grocery stores all over the country! Notably, both Consumer Reports and Rachel Ray named Tate’s Bake Shop Chocolate Chip Cookies the best in America. The cookie giant sells many other flavors, too. And beyond the baked goods available on grocery store shelves, the original Tate’s Bake Shop location is still in operation in the Hamptons. Today, the shop sells cookies, ice cream sandwiches (made with Tate’s cookies, of course), brownies, blondies, cupcakes, and even a branded line of coffee!