​​​​Bucks, Bites and Bake Club: How Milk Bar Builds Brand Loyalty

For a brand with big personality, look no further than Milk Bar. Founded by award-winning pastry chef Christina Tosi, who cut her teeth at New York’s Momofuku, Milk Bar is a dessert shop known for high-low flavor combinations—think cereal, milk, ice cream, and compost cookies. The company also popularized the now-ubiquitous naked layer cake with unfrosted sides. 

Today, Milk Bar is everywhere, with locations from Los Angeles to Toronto, pints in the grocery store freezer aisle, home delivery, and cookbooks on store shelves, plus an online shop that ships cookies and cakes nationwide. Still, the brand’s cool factor endures. Maybe it’s the neon pink logo or high-energy graphics, or the steadfast commitment to “spreading joy far and wide,” but whatever it is, everyone wants a piece of the pie. 

And with Milk Bar’s loyalty program, everyone gets one. When customers sign up for an account, they join the First Bite Club and automatically start earning points that they can redeem on merchandise. Here’s how. 

Points for purchases—and engagement

At Milk Bar, every dollar you spend equals a point earned. That’s standard in the rewards world, but the company takes the program a step further, using the points system not only to encourage sales but to boost engagement, too. 

When customers sign up for an account, they also share their birthday and receive a special treat with their birthday order, plus 10 rewards points. When they refer a friend, they receive 100 points. When they leave a review on an item from the shop, they get 15 points. 

Milk Bar also makes it easy to earn rewards points across platforms, both in person and online. Customers can upload a receipt of their grocery store purchase and get points credit to their account. 

Living the Milk Bar life

Once customers have earned points, they can redeem them for a slice of Milk Bar pie (100 points), birthday truffles (100 points), or chocolate chip truffle crumb cakes (80 points). But they can bring the brand into their home and closet, too. At 275 points, a Milk Bar beanie carries the brand’s logo to the street, and cookbooks, including Every Cake Has a Story and Momofuku Milk Bar (both 500 points) will become part of a home cook’s repertoire. 

What’s especially genius about Milk Bar’s brand is that it’s not all about transactions—it’s about community. Tosi hosts Bake Club on Instagram Live, cooking recipes regularly along with her audience of more than half a million followers. Recipes live on the Milk Bar website, and fans follow along religiously. (The ultra-committed can also join the brand’s online baking course, which promises to make anyone a baker in 30 days.)

The result? Customers and followers alike feel like they are part of something joyful, genuine, accessible, and indulgent. Because at Milk Bar, they believe “everyone deserves to be celebrated.”