Cookie Shop Will Move Into Burger Up Space

New York City-based gourmet cookie shop concept Levain Bakery will operate from the 12South home of Burger Up, according to a Metro permit.

Known for its 6-ounce cookies with crisp exteriors and gooey centers, Levain Bakery was founded in 1995 by friends and fellow triathletes Pam Weekes and Connie MacDonald. In addition to New York, the bakery offers locations in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The Levain website lists 20 shops, with a Miami location planned.

Levain Bakery offers four cookie flavors: chocolate chip walnut, dark chocolate chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin and dark chocolate peanut butter chip. The cookies are priced between $5 and $6.60. A four-pack for shipping is priced at $32.

The original Levain Bakery is located at 167 W. 74th St. in Manhattan and is open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

New York magazine has written favorably about Levain Bakery.

“Among local cookie mavens, they’re considered as much a New York culinary icon as a Katz’s hot dog or a Di Fara slice,” the publication notes (and as seen on the Levain Bakery website). “Tourists bucket-list them. New Yorkers line up for them.”

St. Louis-based architecture firm The Lawrence Group is handling the design of the future space.

Burger Up began operations in 2010 and, as the Scene's sister publication the Nashville Post recently reported, will permanently cease operations after Saturday, Aug. 1.

Jim Lewis, the restaurant's owner via Community Hospitality, announced the closing of the business in mid-June on social media. He did not give a reason for the closure. Via an LLC, Lewis also owns the building from which Burger Up operates, according to Metro records.

Burger Up is located at 2901 12th Ave. S.

Miranda Whitcomb Pontes and her late husband Mike Pontes co-founded Burger Up in 2010. Mike Pontes died in 2013 and Miranda Whitcomb Pontes later sold to Lewis in 2014. 

This article was firt published by the Scene's sister publication the Nashville Post.