Maypril Edition 2026: San Francisco Spotlight: A Look Inside the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory

If you happen to stumble upon Ross Alley in San Francisco’s iconic Chinatown, you’ll find a quaint factory in the wall. The store, while small, is full of heart. Frames full of traditional Chinese characters and illustrations line the walls. A sweet smell wafts through the air. Stacks and stacks of boxes of fortune cookies, some different colors and with chocolate drizzles, fill tables and shelves. If you read further than the little slip of paper tucked into each cookie, you’ll learn that the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory celebrates culture, entrepreneurship, and facing and overcoming adversity.

The history of the fortune cookie 

The history of fortune cookies as a concept traces all the way back to the 1870s in Kyoto, Japan. The Japanese confectionary shops would make a larger and darker version of the fortune cookie, made with sesame and miso. These treats were called tsujiura senbei. The fortune would be stuck into the bend of the cookie, instead of being placed into the hollow inside. 

When the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882, Chinese workers were forced out of America, allowing Japanese immigrants to take their place as “cheap labor.” Another one of San Francisco’s cultural attractions, the Japanese Tea Garden, located just across the street from Cal Academy, is known as the first known restaurant in the United States to serve fortune cookies. They sourced their cookies from Benkyodo, a bakery that claims to have created the flavor of and the machine used to create fortune cookies around the year of 1911. 

Some of those Japanese immigrants opened Chinese restaurants. They couldn’t open Japanese restaurants because Americans didn’t want to eat raw fish. Most of their customers expected a small dessert at the end of their meal, not unlike how some restaurants provide mints with the check. That may explain why many restaurants passed out fortune cookies. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the initiation of Executive Order 9066, which relocated Japanese Americans to internment camps, many businesses run by Japanese Americans were forced to close, giving Chinese-Americans a chance to produce and sell the fortune cookies.

The San Francisco Fortune Cookie Factory was established on August 5, 1962 and has continued to run for over 63 years. They note their many challenges, including “the influence of the anti-Chinese sentiments of the 60s and 70s oil crisis, 9-11, the Great Recession of 2008, and the pandemic of 2020.” Despite the hardships the factory has faced, they continue to create hand-made fortune cookies and “take pride in being a part of San Francisco’s rich cultural history.”  

Celebrities who have been to the factory

The influence of the SF Fortune Cookie Factory reached many, including Chef Gordon Ramsey who made his own fortune cookies, Klay Thompson who did the same, and Kane Lim who visited the factory and supported them. The factory is very well known as part of Chinatown, and makes their own fortune cookies by hand. Their hand folding process is very popular which visitors can watch live from a tiny open kitchen.

To create a fortune cookie

The Fortune Cookie Factory is more than just the birthplace of a future for Chinese-American cuisine. The factory produces 10,000 cookies a day for tourists and San Francisco natives to enjoy. 

These cookies range from chocolate-covered with sprinkles to customized fortunes with your own messages, and many more, but how do they make so many of these fortune cookies in so many varieties of flavors? The batter flows from a pipe, which lands on a rotating cast iron griddle. As it moves, it gets flattened and a worker folds it into its iconic shape, with a fortune pocketed inside. The entire process to make a single fortune cookie takes little time, yet its extensive culture shows through each bite.

Tasting of the fortune cookies

The three main fortune cookie flavors we tried were vanilla, strawberry, and green tea. The vanilla had a chocolate drizzle, adding richness to the simplicity of the cookie. The strawberry cookie had a nostalgic and berry-sweet aftertaste. Finally, the green tea was earthy and light, much different to the other flavors, but shows off the factory’s skill at mastering sweet and savory. Although only those three were tasted, the quality of other fortune cookies are as delicious, if not more, than the classic flavors we had.

Fortune cookies may seem like a simple treat at the end of a meal, but their story reflects a rich blend of cultures, histories, and resilience. From their origins in Kyoto as tsujiura senbei to their reinvention in San Francisco, these cookies carry the imprint of immigration, adaptation, and survival through difficult times. The evolution of the fortune cookie—shaped by Japanese craftsmanship, Chinese-American entrepreneurship, and broader historical events—shows how food can transcend borders and tell complex stories. Today, places like the San Francisco Fortune Cookie Factory continue to preserve this legacy, producing thousands of cookies that delight visitors while honoring the past. In every crisp bite and hidden message, fortune cookies remain a symbol of cultural fusion and enduring tradition.