TATE’S COOKIES OPENS FACTORY IN EAST MORICHES

By TJ Clemente

The first instant that you bite into a Tate’s Chocolate Chip cookie at least two things happen — your ears hear a crisp sound and your taste buds react to a buttery, sugar and chocolate experience. For some cookie eaters, there is no other cookie. It seems Kathleen King mastered something special when she was eleven and baked and sold cookies from her dad’s farm stand. The profits were to go to the purchase of her school supplies. Eventually her talents manifested into Kathleen’s Bake Shop in Southampton. After some difficulties concerning partners and creative differences, Ms. King, in the year 2000, went off on her own again and renamed the kitchen bakery Tate’s Bake Shop, after her father Richard “Tate” King. The nickname, Tate, was tagged on him because he picked taters on the family farm as a little boy. Kathleen also credits her mother, Millie King, for encouraging her to purchase the bakeshop at age 23. The bakeshop, located at 43 North Sea Road, sells custom cakes, pies, cookies and many other baked treats. At first, all Tate’s products were baked in that bakeshop. But demand made Ms. King open up another kitchen for wholesale on Mariner Drive, also in Southampton. Now even the 5000 sq ft facility, a rented space, is not large enough for the almost forty employees who mix, bake, and package the cookies so many desire.

“I never thought any of this would happen. I just did what my father told me — work hard and keep putting one foot in front of the other. I’m very much into simplicity — doing what you know. My parents are responsible for having me keep both feet on the ground — to never forget where I came from,” Ms King said.

Kathleen King is totally committed to preserving the consistency of every cookie made. She is using the same ovens, mixing dishes, measuring tools and ingredients so that the chocolate chip cookie that may be purchased in California — yes, they sell them there now — will taste like ones bought in her bake shop. And so Kathleen is going to open a bigger and better bakeshop, to replace the one on Mariner Drive in Southampton. The new wholesale bakeshop will be a self-owned, air-conditioned, 15,000 sq. ft. building located on 62 Pine Street in East Moriches. “I would love to stay in Southampton but you can’t find space like that here,” Ms King said. Also the new location is more convenient to the employees, all of whom live west of Southampton. Eliminating the need to fight early morning traffic on 27 into Southampton will save them all many hours of driving.

Kathleen still plans to run the operation from her office above the bakeshop on 43 North Sea Road, which on the first floor will remain a bakeshop. Years ago Kathleen committed herself to the idea of making the best consistent chocolate chip cookie. That was the rock on which she was to build her future. Years ago, she said, “We sell millions of cookies but the chocolate chip cookie is key, everything else is secondary.” Now her plan seems simple. Not to reinvent the cookie. She believes her success is keeping her process as close to what she did when she was eleven. She reportedly just explained, “My product is homespun Americana — it’s not from a factory. A lot of people can’t maintain the quality of their product when they grow.” On the phone she said again that the cookie will be exactly the same.

The employees seem to believe the expansion will be positive beyond the commuting factor. Fredis Guerra the production manager of the 5000 sq ft Mariner Drive location believes it just became too “cramped there...the new place will have air conditioning and a bigger kitchen.”

Everyone who loves the cookies hopes they stay just as good. Now perhaps more people will be able to enjoy Tate’s cookies. Lucy Cutting of Greenwich, Ct., says it best, “Tate’s Chocolate Chip Cookies are yummy!”