signs: Mother's Cookies

Mother's Cookies

Mother's Cookies used to be an Oakland institution. It was founded in 1914, after Woodrow Wilson declared Mother's Day to be a national holiday. It hummed along for many years after that. My dad (who was born in Oakland and raised in Oakland and Berkeley) has always been a Mother's Cookies fan. Especially the oatmeal raisin cookies, whether the small ones (my favorite) or the full-sized. As late as 2004, Mother's had 10% of the U.S. cookie market.

But after various sales, mergers, etc., the cookie crumbled. Without warning, the owners in 2006 laid off the 230 workers in Oakland and moved operations elsewhere. Within two years, the parent company was bankrupt. Kellogg's bought the Mother's Cookie assets, and by mid-2009, had reintroduced Mother's Cookies to stores.

I don't know if they have any corporate presence left in Oakland, but on 81st Ave., across from the Sunshine Biscuit factory, and just down the street from where the Mother's Cookie factory was, there's an office building with the distinctive Mother's Cookies logos painted on it and a sign in front.