The facts
Chip City, the viral New York bakery chain that grew from a Queens storefront into a multi-state cookie empire backed by millions from Danny Meyer’s investment firm, appears to have abruptly closed stores across New York City and other major markets, just days after its co-founder sued the company and its controlling investor.
“Despite extensive efforts to stabilize our business in the face of significant macro-economic headwinds, we have made the very difficult decision to close all of our Chip City locations,” the company told The Post in a statement Friday. “We are grateful to our dedicated employees and loyal customers who have supported us for the past 10 years.”
The company had not publicly announced a systemwide shutdown as of Friday morning. But according to a former employee, an email sent to staff Thursday evening said Chip City would “cease all store operations,” permanently closing its 22 remaining stores at the end of the day. The email cited weaker consumer spending and changing preferences: “Our industry and business have faced a challenging environment,” it said. “Unfortunately, we no longer have the funding required to operate this business.” Workers were told it was their final day and would be paid through Oct. 18. “This was easily the most stressful and unprofessional company I’ve ever worked for,” the former employee wrote online.
The shutdown had a surreal touch: NYPD Evidence Collection Team officers were seen photographing the shuttered Upper West Side location Thursday. A man at the site told a local reporter, “please, please don’t talk to the media.” Police said they had no information tied to the address, and it was not immediately clear why the evidence team was there or whether its presence was connected to the closure.
Founded in Astoria in 2017, the chain built a cult following around nearly six-ounce cookies with crisp edges and molten centers, riding the same oversized-cookie wave as Crumbl and Last Crumb. Its growth attracted $17.5 million from Danny Meyer’s Enlightened Hospitality Investments: $10 million in 2022, then another $7.5 million in 2024. The collapse follows a rapid contraction: Chip City recently closed all three of its Connecticut locations, and stores in Virginia shuttered too. By late September, the company’s website listed just 24 locations in New York, New Jersey and Texas.
Days before the closures, co-founder and former CEO Peter Phillips filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court against the company, Enlightened Hospitality Investments, and executives Nicolas Baizan and Fred LeFranc, alleging a bitter dispute over his compensation, benefits, company web domains and hundreds of thousands of dollars in small-business loans. Phillips says he stepped down as CEO in March as part of a restructuring that left Enlightened Hospitality Investments as the controlling investor, remaining in an agreed paid transitional role through December with $157,500 in salary and family health benefits. The September 28 lawsuit alleges the relationship turned tumultuous over the summer, when Phillips claims the company froze his pay while pressuring him to hand over company-related web domains and sign paperwork tied to more than $640,000 in SBA loans he says he still personally guaranteed. After he demanded payment, Phillips says the company terminated him and moved to cut off his health coverage. The suit accuses the defendants of breach of contract, unlawful wage withholding, retaliation, and other violations, and seeks unpaid compensation and damages. The defendants have not yet responded to the allegations in court, and the lawsuit does not establish that the dispute caused the recent store closures.
Even as customers posted videos of closed locations, Chip City’s social media continued promoting its weekly lineup of cookies to more than 300,000 Instagram followers. With the closure come hundreds of employees now out of work.
Our take
Let’s start with the perfect fucking metaphor for this whole hollowed-out, venture-capital-shit-storm of a business: NYPD Evidence Collection Team officers, with their little cameras, treating a dead cookie shop on the Upper West Side like a homicide scene. That’s your return on $17.5 million from Danny Meyer’s Enlightened Hospitality Investments. Not a legacy. Not a brand. A fucking forensic photo op for a six-ounce cookie that cost more to kill than to bake.
The official statement is a masterclass in corporate bullshit artistry. “Significant macro-economic headwinds.” “Weaker consumer spending.” “Changing preferences.” Translation: we lit a giant pile of cash on fire and are blaming the wind. The real story is in the pathetic email sent to staff on a Thursday night telling them to fuck off forever. “Cease all store operations.” “Unfortunately, we no longer have the funding required to operate this business.” You don’t say. You blew through $17.5 million in two years and now you’re out of money? It’s a fucking miracle, you greedy, incompetent cunts. Workers were told it was their final shift and they’d be paid through October 18th. One former employee called it the most stressful and unprofessional company they’d ever worked for. No shit. The management was probably too busy sucking investor dick to learn how to run a fucking bakery.
And let’s talk about the co-founder, Peter Phillips, who saw this shit-train coming and jumped clear with a lawsuit. This dickhead stepped down as CEO in March, agreed to a cushy transitional role with a $157,500 salary and health benefits, and then claims the company froze his pay, tried to cut off his health coverage, and pressured him to sign over $640,000 in SBA loans he’s still personally guaranteeing. He files this lawsuit on September 28th, and days later the whole empire collapses. His lawyer says he’s “shocked.” Shocked! The man is standing in the smoldering crater of his own creation, holding legal papers that detail exactly how the building was wired to explode, and he’s doing a fucking surprised Pikachu face. What a prick.
The surreal cherry on this shit-sundae is the Instagram account. While stores were dark and cops were taking pictures, Chip City’s social media was still blasting out its weekly cookie lineup to over 300,000 followers. The content machine outlived the actual business. That tells you everything. The cookies were never the product. The product was the hype, the posts, the viral dream sold to suckers with money. The Instagram feed is now just a digital tombstone advertising a corpse, and that’s the most honest thing about this whole fucking disaster.
So here’s the final score: a cult cookie brand is now a police curiosity. Hundreds of people are out of work because some assholes in a boardroom couldn’t manage a cookie shop with $17.5 million in backing. And Danny Meyer’s “enlightened” hospitality firm has a new portfolio piece: a chain of empty storefronts being treated like a fucking murder scene. Eat up, you greedy bastards.
