Tucked inside a longtime gyro restaurant in Brooklyn\u2019s Kensington neighborhood, Pookie Bakery, has become a viral sensation on social media.<\/p>\n
The cookie shop is run by 25-year-old Muhaed Ali.<\/p>\n
He said it all started as a passion for baking, and Ali trying to come up with the best chocolate chip cookie recipe for friends and family.<\/p>\n
He eventually put a few cookies out for sale at his family’s restaurant, where his late father and older brother have operated the business for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n
The cookies sold out almost immediately.<\/p>\n
Today, Ali says Pookie Bakery produces between 1,500 and 2,000 cookies each day, along with homemade soft serve ice cream.<\/p>\n
His brother said demand grew so quickly that the family kept investing in larger ovens and more equipment, but the cookies continued to sell out.<\/p>\n
The bakery’s name comes from a nickname Ali gave his niece.<\/p>\n
Despite the bakery’s rapid growth, Ali still works a full-time job. His days begin early, baking cookies before work, followed by a full-time shift, then a return to the bakery, where he often works until after 1 a.m.<\/p>\n
Videos of Pookie Bakery’s cookie tins and desserts have racked up millions of views online, drawing customers from across the tristate area and beyond.<\/p>\n
Ali said seeing people travel to Kensington for his cookies has been one of the most rewarding parts of the experience.<\/p>\n
“People always tell me they like to come to the city,” he said. “Now the city’s coming to us.”<\/p>\n
The growing popularity has also benefited the family’s restaurant.<\/p>\n
“Before, our customers were buying cookies,” Ali’s brother said. “Now his cookie customers are buying gyros.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tucked inside a longtime gyro restaurant in Brooklyn\u2019s Kensington neighborhood, Pookie Bakery, has become a viral sensation on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-291167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}