Insomnia Cookies

Insomnia Cookies was founded in 2003 by Seth Berkowitz, a University of Pennsylvania student who began baking and delivering cookies late at night to his fellow students in Philadelphia dormitories. The business model addressed a need that the late-night food delivery market of the early 2000s did not: warm baked cookies delivered to a college student’s door at midnight. The company has expanded from that dorm-delivery origin to over 200 locations in college towns and urban markets across the country.

The Georgetown O Street location at 3204 serves both the walk-in customer and the delivery market, which at this address means primarily the Georgetown University student population in the surrounding dormitories and off-campus residences as well as the broader Georgetown residential and bar-going population who want a cookie at the end of the evening. The late-night hours, extending to 3am on weeknights and 4am on weekends, are the brand’s defining operational feature: the bakery is open when most of Georgetown’s restaurants and food service businesses are closed.

The cookie menu covers the standard formats: the chocolate chunk, the sugar, the M&M, the double chocolate, and the seasonal variations that the company rotates through. The cookies are baked through the service hours rather than produced in advance and held, which produces the warm, slightly soft center that the warm-cookie experience requires. The ice cream cookie sandwich, which places a scoop of ice cream between two warm cookies, is among the more popular items and represents the category’s indulgence logic at its most direct.

The O Street address is accessible from the M Street end and from the Georgetown University campus direction, and delivery is available to the Georgetown addresses within the delivery radius.

Hours run from 10am daily to 3am or 4am depending on the night. The late-night food delivery market that Insomnia Cookies operates in is a function of the college campus context that Seth Berkowitz identified as the founding opportunity: students who are studying past midnight, returning from bars and parties, or simply experiencing the craving that the late evening and early morning hours produce have limited food options in most cities after the restaurant service hours end. The Georgetown O Street address at 3204, adjacent to Georgetown University, is precisely the market the brand was built for. The O Street location delivers to the Georgetown University dormitories and off-campus residences that the address puts within delivery range. Hours run from 10am to 3am on weeknights and to 4am on Friday and Saturday. The Georgetown O Street address at 3204 is directly accessible from the Georgetown University campus, which is the most significant geographic feature for the Insomnia Cookies delivery model. The dorm delivery tradition that Seth Berkowitz established in Philadelphia becomes the Georgetown dorm delivery reality at this address. The walk-in option allows the non-delivery customer to order in person and carry the warm cookies home or to a nearby park. The Georgetown Waterfront Park and the Georgetown University campus quad are both within walking distance of the O Street scoop.