Me Want Cookies: Feed Your Soul
By Melissa Surach • Jul 29th, 2009 • Category: Featured, Food
Editor’s note: We’re happy to roll out another new column today. In “Me Want Cookies,” Melissa Surach will write about cheap sweets all around Jersey City. Enjoy.
When I recently visited the Feed Your Soul cookie factory, I was not allowed to lie on the floor at the end of the production line and let the cookies fall into my gaping mouth. Instead, owner Mya Jacobson handed me a bag of cookies to take home. I ate them in the closet so I didn’t have to share.
Many bakeries, coffee shops and poetry cafés have died in Jersey City. It’s hard to sustain a business when everything you sell — cookies and coffee — costs a dollar, and most cafés last less than three years. However, Feed Your Soul has found a recipe for success despite Jersey City’s failure oven: quality ingredients, inspirational notes and good business sense.
Jacobson has kneaded Feed Your Soul into a brand. It’s more than a cookie shop — it’s a gift company. These gifts are designed to make you feel good and not only feed your mouth, but your very, well … soul. Every order comes in pretty little gift box with a philosophical quote that you select online (“God is dead” is not one of them). One best seller is “Stressed spelled backwards is desserts.” In addition, a portion of your sales goes to the charity of your choice, so you can make the world a better place while you stuff your face.
“We decided to grow a corporation rather than a bakery,” Jacobson tells me as the factory assembles a few hundred gift boxes. This corporate strategy is what helped Feed Your Soul grow over the past four years. The majority of sales are from online orders, and new and repeat customers are buying big. Wedding favors and corporate gifts bring in orders of several hundreds of dollars — the biggest sale I ever made when I was a baker/barista was $20. There are now two cookie lines (soft and crunchy), two factories (one for each) and they’re distributed in over 25 high-end supermarkets including Dean and Deluca and Fairway. The Today show, Rachel Ray and The New York Times have also featured Feed Your Soul’s delicious treats.
Jacobson suggests that lack of foot traffic and poor internet marketing as reasons that most coffee shops and bakeries fail. The model she’s developed has shielded the factory from the recession’s hardships. “Our sales have stayed relatively even,” she says. “We find that customers will still pay to treat themselves to a premium product that uses all natural ingredients and that makes them feel good.”
That’s enough about boring business — let’s eat some cookies.
There are over 25 varieties, so pace yourself. The all-natural ingredients include real butter and vanilla, which makes the cookies incredibly soft without being underdone. It’s like biting into a tiny pillow. The consistency of the soft cookie line is such that, if I had an umbrella sized cookie and put it on my head, eventually it would drape down over my face without crumbling, kind of like Mushmouth’s hat. I would then chew it off my face. That is also my new fantasy.
The best seller is graham cracker chocolate chip. In the summer, FYS offers key lime cookies made with real key lime juice. The tanginess of this exotic soft cookie, with almost a cake-like texture, makes it stand out from traditional flavors. The only thing that might make it more delicious would possibly be a sweet cream cheese center — but maybe that’s something I’ll have to add on my own time in the closet. In the meantime, I’ll try the ice cream sandwich.
Here what you should consider stuffing into your soul when you go there:
- The Ice Cream Sandwich. Choose from vanilla or chocolate ice cream and whatever cookies you want. It’s decadent enough for two people to share. $3.75
- The Key Lime Cookie. Only available in summer, so eat it now. One for $1.25
- Coffee. It’s from Empire (empirecoffeetea.com) and it’ll save you a trip to Hoboken. Small for $1.25, Large for $1.75
Feed Your Soul
520 Jersey Ave.
Jersey City, NJ 07302
201-204-0720
www.feedyoursoulcookies.com
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Melissa Surach is a writer and comedian who was born and raised in Jersey City. She is a Fiction MFA candidate at the New School and drinks way too much beer.
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