They call themselves the Cookie Mafia, but they don’t run on back-alley deals and secret handshakes; rather, they run on sugar, butter and home-baked goods. When junior Nathaniel Segal and senior Mehmet Masatlioglu founded the business in middle school, they didn’t expect it to evolve into a full-scale organization. Today, they’ve grown into an established business in the Whitman community.
Segal’s initial plan relied on reselling an item with high demand: Pyle’s chocolate cookies.
“We saw how popular the cookies in the school cafeteria were,” Segal said. “If we could buy the cookies at the front of the line, we could sell them for a higher price at the back of the line and try to make a profit. But that didn’t work very well, so we kind of shifted gears.”
Segal and Masatlioglu founded The Cookie Mafia on experimentation, as they tested new flavors and designs to ultimately discover their identity. Segal said customers are always open about sharing their thoughts on each new batch the team creates. Many customers have been buying cookies for years, and some even suggest new flavors for the Cookie Mafia to make. One of these flavors, the Wambo cookie, has a special story behind it.
“When we developed and perfected our original Wambo cookie, which is our own version of a sugar cookie, it was developed in honor of one of our favorite teachers: Mr. Wambo,” Segal said. “Mr. Wambo was a figure who had a significant effect on our upbringing by being the school recess referee. And so when we were making what we thought, and what proved to be, one of our better cookies, we wanted to name it something that resonated with us.”
The Cookie Mafia is known for its lenient policies, such as accepting delayed pay, which allows customers to “enjoy their cookies now and worry about paying later.” The lessons Mr. Wambo instilled in them from a young age play a significant role in how their business operates, as evident in the effort and compassion they put into each cookie and the friendliness they display when selling cookies to peers and friends.
Customer Aidan Sangeorge said Segal’s character and big personality play into the business and how he sells his cookies. Segal will sometimes walk up to Sangeorge and a group of friends, advertising some new, exotic-flavored cookie.
“Everything is original,” Sangeorge said. “I heard about some new cookie, and I was like, ‘Yo, who would think of that! Who would think of making that into a cookie?’ The cookies definitely showcase Nat’s personality.”
Through his business, Segal and his team have nurtured a community bonded together by an occasional sweet treat, providing a sense of normalcy in a culture that can sometimes appear cutthroat. However, not everything in the Cookie Mafia crumbles perfectly. Both founders said time is the biggest limiting factor. With athletics, academics, college applications and other commitments, it can be hard to find the time to bake, Masatlioglu said.
“In those stretches where it often seems that we might not have time to make a sale, or when something didn’t go well during production, it often can leave us frustrated and even disappointed at times,” Masatlioglu said. “But I feel like our core values of spreading our love for cookies and our baking products in the end tend to overcome those issues, and we set aside our struggles to be able to accomplish what’s best for the community.”
The wisdom and lessons they learn stretch far beyond the oven. Segal explained that, although baking and selling don’t always go as perfectly on the first try, he knows that life is full of adversity that they must overcome.
“You’re going to have some mixed-up batches, and you’re going to have some delays in your baking, and all those just come with the grind for those cookies,” Segal said. “And we’ve learned to not only accept that, but be able to overcome those challenges and make some of the best cookies in the DMV.”
For the Cookie Mafia, learning to overcome challenges sometimes meant facing outright disasters in the kitchen. According to Segal, one of their top bakers once mistakenly took powdered sugar instead of flour, producing a batch that was nowhere near a cookie, and they scraped the dough entirely. On another occasion, a rotten egg forced Segal to discard a whole batch. Yet for Segal and Masatlioglu, such setbacks are part of the process and their identity.
“We like to think of our customers and employees as kind of a big family, as the name ‘Mafia’ alludes to,” Segal said. “It shows how we treat everybody in that whole organization with respect. You have to complete a tryout where you bake for the mafia bosses to determine whether your cookies make the cut. But if you’re in, it can be a very lucrative experience, and the Cookie Mafia would love to have new bakers.”
These bakers must not only possess talent, but also fit the Cookie Mafia’s culture. Belief in the company and loyalty to the family are two qualities that are non-negotiable for Segal. When interviewing potential bakers, Cookie Mafia critiques both aesthetics and taste, ensuring they only bring the best product to the market.
Segal said that the business’s future is still unknown, as many members graduate this year, but the Mafia is beginning to train a new generation. Masatlioglu’s little brother is learning the ways of the Cookie Mafia, and Segal has the hopes of expanding the family to the colleges and universities where members are soon to attend. Amidst uncertainty, but they’d love to keep the company churning, leaving a lasting legacy.
All else aside, the Cookie Mafia has been an unforgettable experience for Segal and Masatlioglu offering hope to anyone else with entrepreneurial desires.
“We’re just proof that you can create a successful small business,” Segal said. “You just have to put in some work; it just shows that the more you work on your craft, and the more time and effort you put in, the better and bigger you can become.”
Mehmet Masatlioglu was on The Black & White staff and had no involvement in the publishing of this story.
