The Story of the Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich
From the pushcarts of Bowery to our bakery in Brooklyn, the Cookie Ice Cream sandwich has a fascinating history that is uniquely New York City.
3 MINUTE READ
Our best-selling Goodwich and Confetti Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches
Americans love cookie ice cream sandwiches! They’re the second best selling novelty ice cream in the country (read on to discover #1), but almost nobody can tell you where it came from. This is the whole story, from a Bowery pushcart in 1899 to a bakery counter in Clinton Hill. Come along as we explore the uniquely New York City history of the Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich.
Like many NYC foods, it started on a pushcart
The Lower East Side in the 1800’s was the most densely populated area in the entire world. There were so many people living there, there wasn’t enough brick and mortar retail space to accommodate all of the people who wanted to have a store, so people sold goods on pushcarts. New York City summers are hot and some vendors sold ice cream, often between two pieces of paper. But in 1899, A pushcart salesman whose name has been lost to history, started selling the ice cream between two wafers. He called it “hokey pokey” and people loved it because they could eat it anywhere without a bowl or spoon. Newspapers called it the summer craze of the city. Soon, the hokey pokey spread across the city and the country and became the precursor to the cookie ice cream sandwich.
The next big moment came at the ballpark
In 1945, in Pittsburgh, a man named Jerry Newberg was working as a concession salesman at Forbes Field, home to the Pirates and the Steelers. Mr. Newberg made a simple tweak to the hokey pokey: He made the wafers chocolate and the ice cream vanilla. This format took off and while some sources question if he was the inventor of this combo, there is no question about its popularity. To this day, this is the most popular cookie ice cream sandwich flavor combination in the country.
From the streets to the supermarket
People loved eating this treat on a hot summer day, so it's not surprising that somebody would think about ways to sell the cookie ice cream sandwich to a larger market. In 1978, just over the river in Englewood, New Jersey, a man named Richard LaMotta started experimenting at his ice cream parlor called the Sweet Tooth.He was trying to figure out a way to keep the ice cream sandwich refrigerated for a long time without the cookies getting soggy. He solved the problem, named the product the Chipwich, and went back to the roots of the cookie ice cream sandwich: Selling them on push carts on the streets of New York City.
How the cookie version took over
On May 1, 1982, Mr. LaMotta put sixty street cart vendors on the streets of Manhattan, selling Chipwiches for a dollar. All 25,000 of them were gone within hours. He increased production and two weeks later he was selling 40,000 day. To meet the demands of his customers, he scaled up production and started selling the Chipwich in grocery stores just one year later.
While popular in the 1980s, the Chipwich went through a series of corporate sales and acquisitions and eventually ended up being acquired by Nestle. Around 2010, Nestle killed the Chipwich, but its legacy continues.
The legacy of the Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich
The ice cream sandwich is one of the most popular desserts in the country and the numbers back it up. It's the second best selling novelty ice cream in the country, only behind the frozen ice cream cone. Today, innovations in flavors keep people craving a bite of a cookie ice cream sandwich.
So where can I get the best cookie ice cream sandwich?
You can get the best cookie ice cream sandwich at the Good Batch in Brooklyn, New York. We’re proud to continue New York City’s cookie legacy by offering our version of the Chipwich, which we call the Goodwich, plus a variety of rotating flavors, all made from fresh and local ingredients, many sourced from our local farmers market!
Check out our store at 936 Fulton Street in Brooklyn or have them delivered by clicking the link here.
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We bake a tahini chocolate chunk cookie that is both vegan and gluten free.
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Yes you can! You can buy most of the cookies without ice cream at our bakery in Brooklyn.
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You can order cookies by the dozen via the link here.
