The Toll House Inn was an

inn Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommo ...

located in

Whitman, Massachusetts Whitman is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 15,121 at the 2020 census. It is notable as being the place where the chocolate chip cookie was invented. History Whitman was first settled by Europeans in ...

, established in 1930 by Kenneth and

Ruth Graves Wakefield Ruth Jones Graves Wakefield (June 17, 1903 – January 10, 1977; maiden name: ''Ruth Graves'') was an American chef, best known as the inventor of the Toll House Cookie, the first chocolate chip cookie A chocolate chip cookie is a drop c ...

. The ''Toll House''

chocolate chip cookie A chocolate chip cookie is a drop cookie that features chocolate chips or chocolate morsels as its distinguishing ingredient. Chocolate chip cookies originated in the United States around 1938, when Ruth Graves Wakefield chopped up a Nestl ...

s are named after the inn.Toll The Original Chocolate Chip Cookie
by Aimee Tucker on New England Today Food, March 26, 2020

History

Contrary to its name and the sign, which still stands despite the building having burned down in 1984, the site was never a

toll house A tollhouse or toll house is a building with accommodation for a toll collector, beside a tollgate on a toll road, canal, or toll bridge. History Many tollhouses were built by turnpike trusts in England, Wales and Scotland during the 18th and ...

, and it was built in 1817, not 1709. The use of "toll house" and "1709" was a marketing strategy. Ruth Wakefield cooked all the food served and soon gained local fame for her

dessert Dessert is a course (food), course that concludes a meal. The course consists of sweet foods, such as confections, and possibly a beverage such as dessert wine and liqueur. In some parts of the world, such as much of Greece and West Africa, and ...

s. According to early accounts, Wakefield created the first

using a bar of

semi-sweet chocolate Chocolate is a food product made from roasted and ground cocoa pods mixed with fat (e.g. cocoa butter) and powdered sugar to produce a solid confectionery. There are several types of chocolate, classified primarily according to the proportion o ...

made by

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...

while adapting her butter drop dough cookie

recipe A recipe is a set of instructions that describes how to prepare or make something, especially a dish of prepared food. A sub-recipe or subrecipe is a recipe for an ingredient that will be called for in the instructions for the main recipe. His ...

. In 1938, Wakefield and her assistant, Sue Brides, used chocolate after wanting to "do something a little more interesting with" their already popular butterscotch nut cookie. The new dessert soon became very popular. Wakefield contacted Nestlé and they struck a deal: the company would print her recipe on the cover of all their semi-sweet chocolate bars, and she would get a lifetime supply of chocolate. Nestlé began marketing chocolate chips to be used especially for

cookies A cookie is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, nuts ...

. Wakefield wrote a

cookbook A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes. Cookbooks may be general, or may specialize in a particular cuisine or category of food. Recipes in cookbooks are organized in various ways: by course (appetizer, first cour ...

, ''Toll House Tried and True Recipes'', that went through 39 printings. Wakefield died in 1977, and the Toll House Inn burned down from a fire that started in the kitchen on

New Year's Eve In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve, also known as Old Year's Day or Saint Sylvester's Day in many countries, is the evening or the entire day of the last day of the year, on 31 December. The last day of the year is commonly referred to ...

1984.. The inn was not rebuilt. The site, at 362 Bedford Street, is marked with a historical marker, and that land is now home to a

Wendy's Wendy's is an American international fast food restaurant chain founded by Dave Thomas (1932–2002) on November 15, 1969, in Columbus, Ohio. Its headquarters moved to Dublin, Ohio, on January 29, 2006. As of December 31, 2018, Wendy's was the ...

restaurant and

Walgreens Walgreen Company, d/b/a Walgreens, is an American company that operates the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States behind CVS Health. It specializes in filling prescriptions, health and wellness products, health information, an ...

pharmacy. Although there are many manufacturers of chocolate chips today, Nestlé still publishes Wakefield's recipe on the back of each package of Toll House Morsels.

References

{{Authority control History of Plymouth County, Massachusetts Hotels established in 1930 Cookies Defunct restaurants in the United States Buildings and structures in Plymouth County, Massachusetts Whitman, Massachusetts Chocolate Nestlé Burned hotels in the United States Restaurants disestablished in 1984