The Mackles’more S’mores
Hello Robin
One of my favorite cookies in Seattle is the Mackles’more at Hello Robin. To make it, they press a golf ball-sized glob of chocolate chip cookie dough onto a graham cracker square, top it with a marshmallow, and bake until it’s ooey gooey glorious. Then, right out of the oven, while the cookie dough is still warm and soft, they top it with a little Theo chocolate hat, which melts into a silky pool of decadence with the roasted marshmallow and elevates the treat into a whole new category of cookie. It is perfection.
I’m not the only one who loves it. The cookie’s creator, Robin Wehl Martin, put the Mackles’more on the menu at her bakery Hello Robin when it opened on Capitol Hill in 2013. Since then, both she and the treat have collected numerous accolades, with praise from local and national outlets, including Time Out, Cosmopolitan, and Business Insider. What’s more, Martin’s Mackles’more recipe is featured in Theo Chocolate’s cookbook, Theo Chocolate: Recipes & Sweet Secrets from Seattle's Favorite Chocolate Maker, as well as Allyson Reedy’s cookbook 50 Things to Bake Before You Die, which lists Martin among other pastry world luminaries such as Christina Tosi, Dominique Ansel, and Joanne Chang. Kind of a big deal! Macklemore has also approved (or, at least, politely held one and smiled for a photo).
Which is why it was surprising to see, during a recent visit to Hello Robin while picking up cookies for this month’s cookie countdown, that their arguably most famous cookie had been downgraded to, simply, the S’mores cookie.
I joked with the store’s employee when I noticed the change. “Why the name change? Did Macklemore finally threaten to sue?” The employee kindly laughed at my dumb joke and said the name was changed when the bakery started using Spinnaker chocolate instead of Theo. They switched to Spinnaker since Theo was no longer producing its chocolate in Seattle, they said, the result of the company being sold to American Licorice Company in 2023. Since Theo Chocolate was synonymous with the Mackles’more, a new chocolate meant a new name.
But the timing is curious. After a little more digging, it appears the name change happened around the same time Macklemore was receiving criticism for saying “Fuck America” during his performance at the Palestine Will Love Forever benefit concert on September 21 at the Seward Park Amphitheater.
In a statement published a few days later on Instagram, he explained, “The ‘Palestine Will Live Forever’ festival I performed at was rooted in peace, love and solidarity. Unfortunately, the historic event in my hometown that brought thousands of people together to raise awareness and money for the people of Palestine has become overshadowed by two words. … I wish I had been in a better place with my grief and anger. But the truth is I’m not ok. I haven’t been. The last 11.5 months of watching a genocide unfold in front of us has been excruciating on a spiritual, emotional and human level. I have been in utter disbelief with how our government is showing up at this moment in history. I don’t think I’m alone.”
Still, Macklemore pissed some people off. That week the Mariners and the Kraken released a joint statement saying, “We believe that sports bring people together and unite us. We are aware of Macklemore’s increasingly divisive comments, and they do not reflect the values of our respective ownership groups, leagues, or organizations. We are currently evaluating our collective options on this matter.” The Mariners didn’t play “Can’t Hold Us” during the seventh-inning stretch, which they had done since 2022, and Macklemore was dropped as a headliner at the Neon City Festival in Las Vegas less than a week after being announced. (Festival organizers cited “unforeseen circumstances.”)
Did Macklemore’s comments also cost him a cookie? Hello Robin didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment to clarify when the name was changed and if it had anything to do with Macklemore’s comments at the festival. Macklemore’s PR also didn’t respond to our email. So it’s difficult to pin down exactly when the switch happened and why, but it’s clear that the Mackles’more still existed in early September, and ceased to exist later in the month.
Without concrete answers from the bakery, we did a little social media sleuthing. There are multiple user-submitted photos on Yelp, posted in the first half of September, where Hello Robin’s menu still lists the cookie as the Mackle’smore. The former name also appears in this video, published on Instagram on September 16, with Hello Robin listed as a collaborator. That same day, Hello Robin announced on Instagram that they’ve switched from Theo to Spinnaker, and while the post’s caption currently refers to the cookie as the S’mores cookie, Instagram indicated that the caption was edited after posting. It’s not possible to tell exactly when or what was changed (damn you, Instagram), but, according to Instagram’s edit time stamp, the edits happened 11 weeks from the time of this writing, while the first comments on the post showed up 12 weeks ago.
Seven weeks ago, on that same post, a commenter asked, “When did the name change from macklesmore happen??” and Hello Robin replied that it happened when they stopped using Theo and switched to Spinnaker. That same person then wrote, “it’s concerning you keep deleting comments about people asking more questions.”
It’s Hello Robin’s prerogative to drop Macklemore’s name from their cookie. But this cookie, and its memorable name, had become a notable part of Hello Robin’s brand. Using Macklemore’s name no doubt benefited the bakery in its very early days. When the cookie was introduced in 2013, Macklemore was huge! His album with Ryan Lewis, The Heist, had been released the previous year, and the duo was selling millions of records, racking up billions of YouTube and Spotify plays, and winning practically every major music award available. Macklemore didn’t invent the Mackles’more, or put in the hard work required to successfully grow a small business, but name recognition goes a long way.
Hello Robin didn’t reply to any of our questions to try to contextualize all of this, and the company doesn’t have to make any kind of statement on what’s happening in Gaza right now—many businesses aren’t. But removing Macklemore’s name from the menu after more than 10 years, coincidentally at a time when he was already receiving very public criticism from other business partnerships for speaking out against people and entities who are actively funding the attack on Palestine, well, that does appear to be a stance: A stance that says that Macklemore went too far; that criticism of our country’s continued support of the attacks in Gaza is a line that shouldn’t be crossed. And that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
We're counting down to 2025 by sharing some of our favorite cookies on Slog every day in December! Because life is hard, and sugar helps. Will things get weird? Maybe! There may have been a small fire during the first photo shoot! But hopefully, you'll also discover some new favorite treats to enjoy this season. Track our daily recommendations here! 🍪
