How big a market is there for edible raw cookie dough in lower Manhattan?
New York will find out when World’s Best Cookie Dough opens its doors this December at 164 Bleeker St., three blocks from DŌ, Cookie Dough Confections, and a mile away from the 2 Dough Boyz cart outside Gansevoort Market.
DŌ has sported long weekend lines since its January debut, but its new challenger’s co-founder Shameo Sufian says his core four-member team — friends since their freshman year at Forest Hills High School and all computer science majors in college — is more than up to the task of competing.
The Jamaica resident, whose cookie dough recipe incorporates pasteurized eggs and heat-treated flour, said World’s Best Cookie Dough will serve more than just the sugary childhood treat.
“Banana pudding is famous in Magnolia Bakery, cheesecake is famous in Junior’s Cheesecake, cookie dough right now has hype at Cookie Dough Confections and milkshakes are at Black Tap,” Sufian said, ticking off his competitors. “World’s Best Cookie Dough is bringing all the elements into one place.”
His business will offer cookie dough in at least 16 flavors in scoop form and as an accent in a wide array of desserts: cheesecake pies ($50) and slices ($6), “freak shakes” ($12) as indulgent Black Tap’s “crazy shakes,” pudding in sizes from 4 to 16 ounces, jumbo-sized baked cookies inspired by Levain Bakery’s popular chocolate chip behemoths, and cookie dough sundaes, not unlike those offered at DŌ.
A rotating selection of cookie dough flavors will include classics such as sugar cookie, oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip, as well as seasonal specials like pumpkin spice. World’s Best Cookie Dough plans to charge $4 for one scoop, $7 for two and $9 for three — the same rates as Cookie Dough Confections.
Sufian’s team of computer science majors has “a passion for making new things,” which is “why we’re going to introduce new flavors every month,” said the self-taught baker and former IT consultant at Johnson & Johnson.
Noting that he has no professional culinary training, Sufian said cooking runs in the veins of his Indian family: “It’s something in our blood.”
And his family loves cookie dough, he added.
“You cannot really create something and spend hours and days of your life on [something] that you did not grow up on,” Sufian said.
While the cookie dough slinger said his shop will appeal to all ages, a rendering of World Best Cookie Dough’s 1,395-foot-space — with a mostly white interior, colorful wall decals, and a millennial pink counter — reflects a target audience of NYU students and children.
World’s Best Cookie Dough is slated to open at 164 Bleeker St. in early or mid December.
