Golden Gate Fortune Cookies

Erin Lenczycki for Lonely Planet

Founded in 1962, the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory has been dedicated to producing handmade, high quality and customizable fortune cookies. Located in Ross Alley in the heart of San Francisco's Chinatown, visitors from all over the world are invited inside our shop to experience the cookie making process in person.,,Up to 10,000 fortune cookies are made a day, depending on the season! Cookies are baked fresh on a copper slow-release heat rotating griddle wheel. They are then gently twisted into the famous fortune cookie shape as the message is carefully placed inside. In addition to the traditional vanilla flavored cookies, they make chocolate, strawberry, green tea and glazed cookies.

Find your fortune at this bakery (goldengatefortunecookies.com), where cookies are stamped from vintage presses – just as they were in 1909, when fortune cookies were invented for SF's Japanese Tea Garden. Write your own fortunes for custom cookies ($17.50 for 50,) or get cookies with regular or X-rated fortunes (or just add "in bed" to regular ones). Cash only; $1 tip per photo.

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