According to a dubious quoting of Salman Rushdie at new Broadway cookie shop Cookie Thirty-Nine, “In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips.” But what about the rest of the cookie? And why is chocolate chip so often considered the gold standard? I’ve always preferred peanut butter myself.
Here’s some good news: Thirty-Nine creates what I consider to be a truly great peanut butter cookie, with some chocolate in there too. Called the Peanut Butter Cup, it features, you guessed it, peanut butter cups. The aroma and flavor felt like diving into a vat of the candy—an irresistible result.
Still, in a cookie competition, I wouldn’t bet against the shop’s other daily flavors. Served warm and fresh in small batches, this scratch bakery’s other mainstays include Chocolate Chip, Cookies and Cream (with white chocolate chips as well as classic chocolate), Triple Chocolate Chip, a Sugar Cookie slathered in vanilla buttercream frosting (which I’d suggest renaming the Sugar Rush) and the probable healthiest of the bunch, Oatmeal Raisin.
Made with locally sourced eggs and butter, all were about as big as the flat part of a dessert plate and satisfyingly chewy, even somewhat cakey. Purists who think cookies must be crisp would get plenty of pushback even from the likes of kitchen doyenne Martha Stewart, who’s pointed out that that classic definition of a cookie is now passé “given the fact that America`s favorite dessert has assumed so many incarnations, so many sizes and shapes and flavors.” So there.
Launched in June, Cookie Thirty-Nine is the brainchild of David Powell and his son Mark, the shop’s chief of operations. They tout their close connection to the Yale community as the son-in-law and grandson of esteemed Eli football coach Carmen Cozza, whose tenure lasted from 1964 to 1996. A cutout of Handsome Dan greeted me in the bakery window before I found myself choosing between individual cookies for $4.50 apiece or a range of deals at volume. I opted for a half-dozen on a day when the store was running multiple promotions, so was able to combine the standard discount price for six cookies ($23.50) with a a “buy one, get one free” offer and a third bonus in the form of an additional free cookie. In sum, I walked away with seven cookies for $19.58.
Other offers included the “Bulldog Bundle” ($20), four cookies with your choice of two soft drinks, and the “Care Package” ($50), 12 cookies with four beverages. I’m a bit of a purist myself when it comes to cookie accompaniments; while the selections here include Tropicana fruit juices and Prime “hydration drinks” (both $3.50), for me the only acceptable combinations are cookies and milk or coffee/tea. Pints of Arethusa whole and chocolate milks ($3.50) are also on hand, but alas, nothing heated.
That’s a shame, because my Cookie Thirty-Nine cookies held up quite well to a dunk in hot coffee. Mark Powell says the abundance of existing coffee shops around town discourages its addition to the menu—despite the fact that “customers ask for it all the time”—but he hopes to introduce tea and hot chocolate in the cooler months.
Purchasing cookies is strictly a to-go proposition, though there’s seating just across the street at Broadway Island, and customers are encouraged to pause for a photo under the “Angels on Earth” mural by Colette Miller, an image of two large blue wings designed in memory of David Powell’s late wife (and Carmen Cozza’s daughter) Kristen. Cookie deliveries can be arranged during shop hours through DoorDash, and catering is available. There’s also a rewards program that you can sign up for on the website (though the early images there don’t do the cookies justice): Buy 10 cookies, get one free.
Plans for future development include adding a new flavor every month. A “summer cookie” release is planned for the end of July, and there’s scuttlebutt that either a Snickerdoodle or S’mores flavor will join the main lineup soon—familiar flavors like the rest, but hopefully executed just as unusually well.
Written by Patricia Grandjean. Image 1, featuring all six cookie varieties, photographed by Dan Mims. Image 2, featuring, from left, general manager Brian Sibley Jr. and chief of operations Mark Powell, photographed by Patricia Grandjean.
