Discover the New KitchenTown in San Mateo
Rediscovering the cookies I loved as a kid.
If you’re a long-time or native San Franciscan like myself, you probably grew up with these Danish butter cookies.
My aunt would bestow a box on our family every Christmas. The box would be lined with rows of five different types of golden-hued cookies. The oatmeal was always my favorite, and the one I reached for first.
When my aunt retired, so did the cookie gift-giving. And I never had them again.
Until now.
Imagine my surprise when I dropped in at the new KitchenTown in San Mateo to discover it was the home of Anna’s cookies, the ones I had grown up with.
The cafe inside KitchenTown.
Pastries baked on site are sold and served in the cafe.
The company, which started in 1938 in San Francisco, had relocated to this sprawling San Mateo warehouse years ago. When it came up for sale this year, entrepreneur Rusty Schwartz and his friend, Alberto Solis, an importer of gourmet Spanish foods, decided to buy it even though they’d never dream they’d be in the cooking-making business.
Not only are they keeping the iconic cookie company going now, but they’ve created a new production kitchen, culinary store and cafe inside the warehouse, geared toward helping small artisan food producers scale up their business.
Learn more about this fascinating new business, which opened last month, in my recent story in the San Francisco Chronicle.
KitchenTown was the brainchild of Rusty Schwartz (L) and Alberto Solis (R).
So glad to see Anna’s cookies in a new spot! Love seeing the old school SF food companies thrive in an age of hipster artisan brands.
I remember our family getting Dutch butter cookies in a cylinder tin can that had layers and layers of cookies. Don’t remember the brand, does Anna come that way? I think my favorite was the ginger cookie with sugar crystals.
Ben: I don’t think those are one and the same companies, since I don’t believe Anna’s makes a ginger cookie. But it should! Ginger fiends like you and I need our fix, right? 😉
Lucky you to taste them again after all those years ,..mmmmmmmmm! A cool simple interior to savor them too!