
Anthony Lucas is known across SF for his kindness, generosity, and infectious smile. He also bakes some of the Bay Area’s best cookies and has been running his business, Anthony’s Cookies, for the past 24 years.
While most SF bakeries offer cookies alongside pastries, cakes, bread, and other treats, Anthony’s is all about the cookies. Your options are cookies, milk, coffee, ice cream, or some combination of these like their extremely popular ice cream sandwich.
They offer 10 cookie flavors, with the most popular flavors being cookies & cream and their classic chocolate chip. The toughest decisions that you have to make are which cookie flavors to choose and how many can you carry.
Notably absent from the menu are novelties like cookie cakes, giant cookies, funny shapes, and the like. The focus has always been on simplicity, quality, and the never-ending pursuit of the perfect cookie.
“I want to be the Thomas Keller of cookies,” Lucas told the SF Chronicle in 2018, referencing the chef and owner of the world-renowned French Laundry restaurant in Yountville. “That’s what I’m capable of doing.”
Lucas first learned to bake cookies while studying accounting and engineering at San Francisco State University. As a self-taught baker, Lucas learned by critically analyzing every part of the baking process. He paid close attention to how each individual cookie baked and started to develop his own methods.
Long before he had a storefront or commercial bakery, Lucas sold cookies out of his car and elicited feedback from anyone who would give it. Using this customer feedback he continued to refine his recipes and baking process. The ultimate goal was to give his customers “the perfect people-pleaser cookie,” as Lucas puts it.
The first brick-and-mortar location for Anthony’s Cookies opened in SF’s Mission District in 2009 and produces over 350,000 cookies per year. In 2017, Anthony’s Cookies opened a larger commercial bakery and shop in Berkeley, with the capacity to produce well over 350,000 cookies per month. Anthony’s Cookies has ambitious plans to grow its retail and wholesale business in the Bay Area, so there’s a chance that you’ll see these little cookies a lot more often.
You can visit Anthony’s Cookies at:
- 1417 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA
- 2575 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley, CA
Featured image: @anthonyscookies via Instagram