Craving cookies

PAM WEEKES and CONNIE McDONALD, Levain Bakery

WORK • Tuesday Routine

PAM WEEKES and CONNIE McDONALD • co-owners • Levain Bakery
Neighborhood you live in: Wall Street

It’s Tuesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
This week, we’re in our offsite office, working on finalizing things for next fall. It’s our big 30th anniversary year so we have celebratory moments planned all year long, but things really begin to ramp up in the fall as we head towards the holidays. It’s insane to think we’ve been doing this together for that long — mostly because it feels like just yesterday when we opened on 74th Street.

What’s on the agenda for today?
Also, today we’re doing some recipe testing for a couple of new cookie ideas we’ve been working on. It sometimes takes us years to get something we feel that we like enough to offer in the bakeries. We’re revisiting something we’ve had in the works since 2020, and trying two new ideas. We’re also checking in on our Valentine’s Day plans — it’s always one of the busiest days of the year, and we love to see people sharing their love with us. One of our favorite tins is our Valentine’s Day tin, and this year, we’ve also got a special two cookie box (available for local delivery and in-bakeries), which is so cute.

Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
This weekend we might go back to Claud in the East Village with some friends. We both live downtown, and we also love the Tin Building at the Seaport; it’s a great place to meet up and grab a quick sandwich, salad, or crepe for lunch. It’s also nice to go early for a coffee and croissant. We try not to go out too much during the week because our days start very early, and we both love being home in the evenings with our pets.

How about a little leisure or culture this week?
We’re taking an hour to go to see the Anne Frank exhibit. We both loved reading the book when we were much younger, and this is a limited opportunity to see the world premiere exhibit in NYC.

What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?
Connie LOVES sparkling water and so, I (Pam) got her an Aarke Carbonator 3 for Christmas. I was nervous, as she’s very picky, but she loves it.