Weather 
Apparently, that’s how the cookie crumbles.
Chip City, the viral New York bakery chain that ballooned from a Queens storefront into a multi-state cookie empire, backed by millions from Danny Meyer’s investment firm, appears to have abruptly shuttered stores across New York City and other major markets — just days after its co-founder sued the company and its controlling investor.
Videos posted to social media showed darkened storefronts and printed closure notices pasted on facades, while customers and purported employees reported shutdowns even as some stores remained listed as open on Google and Chip City’s own website.
“All locations shut down with no notice,” one customer alerted neighbors on the Upper East Side, claiming staff received an email saying it would be their final day.
“Confirmed the UWS one is closed and there are cops outside telling passers-by to get away and not touch anything when they try to approach,” another customer reported.
Chip City had not publicly announced a systemwide shutdown as of Friday morning. The Post reached out to the company, its founders, executives and investors for comment.
The apparent New York closures follow a rapid string of shutdowns elsewhere.
Chip City recently closed all three of its Connecticut locations while stores in Virginia have also shuttered. By late September, the company’s website listed just 24 locations in New York, New Jersey and Texas, a sharp contraction from its footprint at the height of its expansion.
Chip City rode the same oversized-cookie wave that turned brands like Crumbl and Last Crumb into social-media sensations, helping push cookies into the kind of viral-dessert moment cupcakes once had with brands like Magnolia Bakery. The category exploded around rotating flavors, limited drops and massive, camera-ready cookies built for TikTok and Instagram
Founded in Astoria in 2017, Chip City built a cult following around their nearly six-ounce cookies with crisp edges, molten centers and a rotating weekly menu.
Its rapid growth attracted $17.5 million from Danny Meyer’s Enlightened Hospitality Investments in two rounds — $10 million in 2022, followed by another $7.5 million in 2024 to fuel further brick-and-mortar expansion.
But as stores began disappearing this fall, internal turmoil was baking.
Just days before the latest closures, Chip City co-founder and former CEO Peter Phillips filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court against the company, Enlightened Hospitality Investments and executives Nicolas Baizan and Fred LeFranc, alleging a bitter dispute over his compensation, benefits, company web domains and hundreds of thousands of dollars in small-business loans.
Phillips claims he stepped down as CEO in March as part of a restructuring that left Enlightened Hospitality Investments as Chip City’s controlling investor. He remained in an agreed paid transitional role through December, with $157,500 in salary and family health benefits promised under the deal.
“Although our client has not been part of ownership for some time, he is shocked at what happened to a company that he and his friend had put together,” a representative for Phillips’ law firm told The Post.
The September 28 lawsuit alleges the relationship between the parties became tumultuous over the summer, when Phillip claims Chip City froze his pay while pressuring him to hand over company-related web domains and sign paperwork tied to more than $640,000 in SBA loans he says he still personally guaranteed.
After he demanded payment, Phillips says the company terminated him and moved to cut off his health coverage.
The lawsuit accuses Chip City and the other defendants of breach of contract, unlawful wage withholding, retaliation, and other violations. Phillips is seeking unpaid compensation, damages, and other relief.
The defendants have not yet responded to the allegations in court, and the lawsuit does not establish that the dispute caused the recent store closures.
Still, the timing adds another layer of uncertainty around a company that, until recently, was touting aggressive growth.
Even as customers posted videos of closed locations, Chip City’s social media continued promoting its weekly lineup of cookies to more than 300,000 Instagram followers. It is unclear how operations will continue to persist at this time.
With the closure come hundreds of employees now out of work.
