Orange County is finally getting a taste of the cookie chain that has famously drawn crowds around the block elsewhere in Southern California. Levain Bakery is set to open its first Orange County location at Fashion Island in Newport Beach in the earlier part of September, marking the brand's fourth California bakery.
The new shop will sit in Suite 315 at 315 Newport Center Drive, according to Levain Bakery, placing it inside the 75-acre open-air luxury retail and dining center that has anchored Newport Beach shopping since it opened in 1967, per Wikipedia. Fashion Island is home to major department stores including Bloomingdale's and Neiman Marcus, giving Levain a high-traffic backdrop for its Orange County debut. As NBC Los Angeles first reported, this will be Levain's fourth bakery in the state and its third in Southern California, joining existing locations in Larchmont Village, Venice, and Beverly Hills, plus outposts in Maryland and Florida.
A Cookie Born From Ironman Training
Levain's story stretches back over three decades to co-founders Pam Weekes and Connie McDonald, described by NBC Los Angeles as best friends who built the brand into a major name in sweets on the strength of its cookies. The pastry chefs invented their now-signature six-ounce chocolate chip walnut cookie in 1995 as a high-calorie energy snack while training for an Ironman triathlon, according to the Institute of Culinary Education. The pair originally opened Levain as a wholesale and retail artisanal bread shop on Manhattan's Upper West Side, and the bakery still offers signature breads and non-cookie pastries alongside its dark chocolate chocolate chip, chocolate chip walnut, and non-chocolate cookie varieties.
Weekes and McDonald said in comments cited by NBC Los Angeles that Newport Beach is the next natural step for the brand, adding that Levain brings people together and that Southern California agrees. That sentiment lines up with the company's growth trajectory since 2018, when private equity firm Stripes Group acquired a majority stake in Levain to fund its transition from a beloved local New York bakery into a nationwide chain, according to Forbes. That capital infusion has fueled a selective expansion strategy, targeting high-foot-traffic, upscale outdoor shopping corridors rather than saturating markets all at once.
Following a Trail of Long Lines
Levain made its West Coast debut in June 2023 on Larchmont Boulevard in Los Angeles, drawing an opening-day line of nearly 300 people, per Forbes. The chain then opened a second Southern California bakery on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice in April 2025 before landing in Beverly Hills that August, where the store offered a location-exclusive Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Chip cookie and marked Levain's 18th location nationwide, according to the Beverly Press. The Beverly Hills opening also followed a now-familiar community-giving model: opening-day proceeds went entirely to Our Big Kitchen Los Angeles, a practice detailed by Craft to Crumb.
Levain's corporate policy calls for donating 100% of opening-day proceeds at every new bakery to a local community nonprofit, according to the same Craft to Crumb report, and the chain also donates all unsold baked goods daily to local food rescue groups. Which nonprofit will benefit from the Newport Beach opening has not yet been announced. The brand's reach extends beyond its storefronts, too — Levain launched a line of eight-pack, two-ounce pre-cooked frozen cookies into grocery stores including Whole Foods Market back in 2020, per Nosh.
Viral Fame Fuels the Expansion
Much of the buzz around Levain's openings traces back to social media. The bakery racked up 44.3 million features on TikTok in 2023 alone, making it the most tagged bakery on the platform in the United States, per the Institute of Culinary Education. That viral momentum has followed Levain into new markets well beyond California — Hoodline previously reported that the chain filed plans in July to open a location at The Domain NORTHSIDE in Austin, Texas, part of an eight-state expansion push that now spans Washington, D.C. as well.
For Orange County bakery fans, the bigger question is whether Levain's handcrafted approach and long lines will hold up as it opens store after store across the country. For now, shoppers strolling Fashion Island next month will get their first chance to find out, six ounces of chocolate chip walnut cookie at a time.
