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The storefront at 18 East Main Street in Patchogue — a former candy shop — will still serve as a spot to keep locals’ sugar cravings satisfied.
The owner of Duchess Cookies, a rapidly growing boutique cookie shop chain, won village Planning Board approvals Tuesday night.
It will likely open later this spring in the former location of Sensationally Sweet, which closed in the spring of 2020.
Before opening its first store this past December in Plainview, Duchess Cookies had already amassed over 50,000 Instagram followers.
It was a following fueled by photos of founder and president Sofia Demetriou’s gooey creations — from the purple and black Galaxy cookie, stuffed with milk chocolate ganache, to the Cookie Monster, a chocolate chip cookie encased in a blue sugar cookie.
Since starting in 2017, Demetriou relied on Internet buzz for sales, and entered licensing agreements with other sweet shops such as Milk and Cookies and Rush Hour Cookies, to sell her brand.
Now, after a tumultuous year for many businesses, the baker who first cut into the business with a cake shop 15 years ago, is seizing on the opportunity to expand.
“The pandemic definitely gave us a little bit of a boost because, surprisingly enough, people love comfort food and cookies and stuff like that when they’re stressed out,” Demetriou said. “So, you know, we thought that ‘oh no, all the sudden the pandemic hit, were done.’ It actually kind of pushed us along even more.”
Patchogue is not the only Duchess Cookies storefront that will crop up in the coming weeks. Demetriou expects to see her Oceanside and Islip locations open up next month as well.
“It’s like every week we’ve got a new opening going on,” she said.
Between her new openings this year — as well as her partner store sales — she said her cookies will be sold at 23 locations in the Tristate area by summer.
Line up early
Visitors to the Patchogue location can expect hot cookies every day.
Demetriou said her 5-ounce cookies will be made in her Ronkonkoma factory, delivered frozen, and heated every hour for her cookie cravers.
Staples that Duchess veterans have come to expect — like the Galaxy and the Cookie Monster, as well as the Unicorn and Funfetti — will be in typical rotation, alongside new, “wacky flavors” Demetriou said.
Among them: the “chocolate covered strawberry,” “German chocolate chunk,” and the “acai bowl.”
With nearly 150 flavors in her recipe book, some of her cookies are only rolled out on a seasonal basis.
“We’re gonna be dropping new flavors every week all summer, so it’s gonna be an interesting summer,” Demetriou said.
She is also introducing what she calls Twissles, or “two different flavored cookies fused together to kind of produce a starburst pattern,” she explained. “And they’re filled as well.”
Blueberry lemonade and chocolate cherry cola are among the first twissles customers can expect.
Demetriou, whose former cake shop opened in East Meadow 15 years ago, said her cookies do not stay on the shelves for long whenever, whether they’re in a new town or not.
“We always sell out during opening week. It’s always kind of crazy,” she said. “But the good thing is the factory’s close, so we could always make sure they have brand new stock.
“We’ll be working extra hard.”
