Janie’s “Life Changing Baked Goods” had its soft-opening this weekend at 212 West 80th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. Starting Tuesday, it will be open from 10am-6pm daily. This space was previously home to Grill 212, which closed last summer.
Janie’s is “Home of the Pie Crust Cookie,” which come in a variety of flavors including pecan, chocolate, apple and triple berry. These cookies are also available in boxes you can order online or find at the Whole Foods on East Houston Street.
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These pie-cookie hybrids were featured in a 2019 Gothamist list of “The 20 Best Cookie Spots in NYC,” even though there was no physical “spot” at that time. The author praised the product as “an ingenious creation with flaky pie crust as the base, sweet, gooey filling in the middle, and buttery, crumbly strudel on top.”
Janie’s also offers Pie Crust Bites (“Flakey and buttery pie crust rolled with cinnamon and sugar then baked to caramalized perfection”) and Half Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies (“Caramelized on the outside, chewy on the inside”).
Pie Crust Bites
Half Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies
On janiebakes.com, Janie describes how the company came to be in 2015 – after she “spent years struggling with addiction and homelessness in her early 20’s. Janie’s (formally Janie Bakes) was born out of an act of self-care, baking, as Janie was reconstructing her life and trying to stay sober. She had years of gaps in her resume, not a whole lot of work experience and no idea of what sort of career she wanted.”
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She goes on to write that while working as a super in the East Village, she began to bake – as it had always “brought her joy as a child.” She bought a mixer, starting baking for friends, and eventually started fielding requests.
More Sweets Coming Soon: Chip City Cookies and Zai’s Dessertery
Janie now gives back by helping women “through mentorship and second chance employment,” her website states, while also teaching baking classes to underprivileged kids and donating cookies to local community centers and homeless shelters.
These cookies are so amazing!!!!! I can not wait for this bakery to open!
I still remember when Levain opened on West 74th and we all fell in love with the amazing molten chocolate and walnut cookie. I predict next up will be Janie’s pie crust cookie. You heard it here first.
it’s already in Whole foods so you’re hardly the first one to think this is a special cookie. please
what is working against this cookie already is that they’re selling them at whole foods. which kills the allure and mystique because it’s readily available, at a corporate location. having this storefront is cool in a way but nothing like LeVain that worked itself up from a hole in the wall, underground. not even close.
it took LeVain a corporate sell out and a frozen line to wind up in whole foods.
Triggered by the mis-narrativizing of a baker’s roll out or are you a Levain’s troll? Good grief.
Agree–as though people who would shop on 80th Street want to schlepp to Whole Foods on 59th or 97th, stand in their long lines, etc. I wish Janie the best of luck!
Jane very much dislikes success
Oh I hope so Carol! Im going to check them out. I love the owner’s story…what an inspiration!
Has Insomnia Cookies fallen out of fashion? And what about the commercially available Tate’s sold at Fairway and Bed Bath & Beyond no less? Still love their chocolate walnut with a tall glass of cold milk. Levain is a meal-in-a-cookie; it’s almost too much of a good thing. And, back to Insomnia, I never did accept their
“We don’t have to bake’m. Just eat the dough!” approach to cookies.