October Is Bringing The Treats as NYC’s Levain Bakery Opens Up at 1518 Walnut St, Offering Delicious – And Huge! – Cookies Plus More
With a line that stretched around the block residents showed that they were excited for Levain’s arrival in Philly.
“What are you standing in line for?” asked one woman on Walnut to a woman waiting in line.
“Levain!” answered the woman.
“Oh. Are they good?” asked woman number 1. Guessing she wasn’t sure what Levain is.
“Yes, they’re great!” said woman number 2, who seemed content with short answers.
Not exactly award-winning dialogue but in everyone’s defense, it was around 9a on Friday, October 11th. While it was supposed to be seasonably cold, after a few days of warm weather, it felt unseasonably cold. Particularly if you were in line for over an hour like us and finally could see your final destination at the corner of Walnut and S Sydenham Street: the final product of the construction we had been obsessively following: Levain.
We were a little taken aback by the number of people standing in line to experience Levain on its opening day. We first saw the line when we were out and about with our Chief Happiness Officer around 8 am that Friday and headed up 17th Street. The line was halfway down that block and a Levain employee was handing out stickers. We took a quick pick and then got ourselves a sticker (yay), intending to come back later when the line was shorter, so we could test the goods. Research is clearly VERY important to us! But it was a Friday, and what’s more fun than visiting a brand new bakery with cookies we know are great and helping to welcome them to the neighborhood?
Okay, so we didn’t think the logistics through because (a) we didn’t bring our still-packed wool coat and, (b) we thought the line would move fast. WE WERE SO WRONG. We jumped on the line at 8:30a and reached the front door around 10 a.m. In full disclosure, we are impatient people and we’re still kind of surprised we stood in line for THAT long. When we jumped on, that line was almost at Locust.
Was it worth it? For us, 100%. Now we get why people stand in lines for certain (not all – some things remain a mystery) things.
For one thing, there’s a shared sense of camaraderie even if we’re all on our phones. We met a political canvasser who had come up from DC the night before and was excited to stand in line to try, as she said, “cookies she had heard so much about. And get a free bag.” Levain employees would come by to say hi, and give us hot chocolate, stickers, magnets, and yes, a pretty tote bag with the Levain logo and the Liberty Bell. We met the brother of one of the founders who was SO jazzed about the line, and appreciative for everyone who came out to welcome them.. We also got to brag about it to people who thought – and likely still think – we’re crazy.
We’re thrilled with what Levain has done with the space. We’ll admit it’s a bit different than what we had pictured in our head. The picture in our head was formed by the photos of its former occupant, My.Suit who had leaned into the 1920s bank space vibes, with its cavernous space, arched and embellished ceilings, and marble floors that made it a minimalist’s dream showroom (see it at the bottom of our article here).
Fun note: If you’ve lived here long enough you may remember the space as The Sharper Image. OCF Realty has a fun little post from 2011 on that.
Back to what it is now: About 60% of the space is taken up by the kitchen. There is room for people to stand in line and nice looking benches worked into the design, that ran the length of the street facing wall and window.
Levain brought over some of their experienced staff from New York who were excited to meet other ex-New Yorkers and people who had been to the New York locations. They knew the menu inside out and were able to move people through fairly quickly, which is no mean feat: We heard people had stood in line for longer than we had. The cashier was excited to meet us and we were just as excited to meet him because we hadn’t had coffee and were on the verge of getting super cranky.
We bought a bunch of things to share: One of every cookie, the cookie tin, and iced lattes. Everything was delicious. The special edition fall cookie has chocolate chunk with ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and molasses, and in addition to the cookies they are carrying seasonal breads, loaf cakes, pastries, brioche, and weekend-availabilty-only sticky buns.
The icing on the proverbial cookie? We ran into a fellow Rambler who was just as excited as we were to be able to welcome Levain on their opening day in Rittenhouse.
