How Christina Tosi Grew Milk Bar Into an Empire
You may have eaten one of her famous Compost Cookies or seen her as a judge on MasterChef. Christina Tosi is the founder of Milk Bar a company that makes and sells delicious baked goods and desserts with unorthodox names like the Confetti Cookie, the Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookie and Cereal Milk Ice Cream. These are not your average treats and like her desserts Tosi’s success is far from average.
Milk Bar started with humble beginnings by opening a small store in the East Village in New York City in 2008. From those small beginnings Milk Bar now sells millions of cookies annually and has 12 stores in the United States. Tosi’s journey provides a blueprint for success and it starts with doing what you love even if you aren’t sure where that’s going to lead you.
Do what you love
Sounds cheesy doesn’t it? But it works. After college when Tosi was trying to figure out what to do next with her life she asked herself a critical question: “what is that one thing I could do that's going to make me excited about waking up in the morning and that I'll never get sick of?” Her answer: “making cookies”. She didn’t ask herself what’s the best way to make a lot of money, she simply followed her heart. After answering that question she moved to New York and enrolled in culinary school. She decided that if she was going to make cookies for a living she was going to be the best at it.
After finishing culinary school Tosi worked at a number of restaurants. But as soon as she made it to the top at one restaurant she moved on to the next restaurant. This pattern continued for a while as she sensed that she hadn’t found the right career but at the same time she didn’t know what to do next. “I didn't relate deep down with these fancy desserts [I was making at those restaurants]. I loved the art of them, I loved the craft of them, but they just weren't me” said Tosi.
In 2005 Tosi was introduced to renowned chef David Chang, founder of Momofuku restaurants. She worked for Chang’s restaurant in business operations but she never gave up her love for baking. After creating Momofuku’s popular dessert menu Chang gave Tosi the seed money to open the first Milk Bar store in 2008.
Even with a hectic schedule Tosi still finds time to work on creating new recipes. She has been known to spend 24 hours or more per week doing this. What Tosi and other successful entrepreneurs know is that it is impossible to dedicate the time required to become great at something if you don’t love what you do. Tosi’s two James Beard awards are a testament to this. People often underestimate the time and passion it takes to become great at something and then wonder why it is taking so long to achieve the success they are looking for. Tosi’s success is no accident she put in the time and has reaped the benefits.
Follow your intuition
How often do you listen to that small voice inside of you that is always guiding you in the right direction? One of the reasons Milk Bar took off is because it’s different. It’s different because instead of selling replicas of baked goods that already existed Tosi worked hard to create her own recipes. Tosi did not develop Compost Cookies or Cereal Milk Ice Cream by looking at what everyone else was doing. She did it by constantly experimenting and following her gut. Tosi’s philosophy is that “we need to do us”. It’s important to “colour outside the lines.”
“We never do anything for the ‘wow’ factor. We do something because we connect with it emotionally. We can spend two years developing a single product. If something doesn’t bring that warmth, that comfort, that feeling of a big hug from grandma, we don’t do it. Our partnership with JetBlue…is a great example. Flying was always one of my favorite things to do as a kid -- we didn’t do it a lot, usually just to Ohio from Virginia -- but I remember staring out that window with wonder, scrunched up in my seat. An airplane remains one of my favorite places to daydream. So a Milk Bar cookie definitely has a place there” said Tosi.
“I think a lot of people underestimate how many answers they have in themselves; oftentimes mentors are the ones who just help you find the key to unlock it.” “[A mentor] doesn’t have to be someone in the same business as you, someone who has all the networks, secrets and connections. But it has to be someone you can be outrageously honest with.” Tosi said.
We often give more weight to charts, numbers and data. But our intuition can somehow see the things we can’t see. Even Jeff Bezos who has access to more data than anyone says that “all of my best decisions in business and in life have been made with heart, intuition, guts... not analysis.”
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Have a vision
Tosi’s vision for her life started early. As a kid she dreamed of having a bakery. After working at Momofuku for a few years Chang gave Tosi the seed money to open the first Milk Bar. “After the cereal-milk soft serve broke out [at Momofuku], I knew she had to do something. We had an option on a space, and she’d spoken about opening a bakery” said Chang.
Over a decade later Tosi has an empire. But how did she get there? By having a big vision for what she could accomplish. Part of Tosi’s vision for Milk Bar is to: “grow, but in places where you might not expect us. It’s not to open 101 Milk Bars. It’s to increase our ability to, like, show up on your doorstep. It’s to meet you in the aisles of your grocery store. It’s to meet you at those moments in life that you could very easily take for granted. It’s to remind you that there’s cause for celebrating the everyday.”;
Since opening that tiny first Milk Bar store, Tosi has written several cook books including: Momofuku Milk Bar: A Cookbook, All About Cake: A Milk Bar Cookbook and Milk Bar Life: Recipes & Stories: A Cookbook.
If you want to make Milk Bar’s signature treats at home you can take baking classes at Milk Bar. For $145 you can learn how to recreate Milk Bar’s famous Birthday Cake. Milk Bar has also collaborated with clothing brand Madewell in the past to create a limited-edition line of merchandise that included clothing and baked goods.
Tosi is far from stopping. In 2020 Milk Bar products landed on the shelves of Whole Foods. Now consumers can find Milk Bar products at retailers across the United States. “We’ve been working towards bringing our vision to grocery stores for quite a while.” said Tosi. “Grocery stores have always been my north star—it’s why I started baking the way I do.” “The American cookie aisle is relatively stagnant, and that’s what we’re coming out for”
You don’t to need to have all of the answers since they always come along the journey but dreaming about what’s possible is one of the keys to your success.
Take risks
Opening a store or restaurant of any kind in New York City is not for the faint of heart. Tosi says that to get away from the doubts and worries she simply throws herself into her work. A big part of her success has been taking risks with her menu items. From using names no one has heard of to formulations no one as thought of she doesn’t play it safe.
“Starting a small business in New York requires a suspension of any inkling that the business might not work,” said Danny Meyer, founder and executive chairman of Union Square Hospitality Group. “You have to be so passionate about your product—and so convinced that it will bring joy to others—that you are virtually blind to any real challenges.”
Speaking about opening her first Milk Bar store Tosi said: “where my normal head would go into over planning and weighing all my options, I didn't have time for that. It wasn't about having a P&L. It was just: I have 45 days to make this happen. I didn't have time to worry about, ‘what if people don't come, or what if people think the name Compost Cookie is a crazy, horrid thing to name a cookie?’ I didn't have time for self-doubt.”
Tosi took another risk when she launched a new product line in 2016 called Milk Bar Life. The line featured green juice and creative breakfast items but ultimately it did not work out. “Eight months in, it wasn’t losing money, but it was not performing. And I kept pushing.” said Tosi. But after listening to feedback from her team Tosi decided to pull the initiative. “One voice after another [said], ‘People don’t want to drink their green juice at Milk Bar, Christina. They want Milk Bar as an escape.’ I was willing to ask the question and they were willing to take the leap and say, Your vision doesn’t work anymore. So, we don’t do it by and large.”
Not every risk is going to work out but if you do not take any then your outcome is guaranteed.