Cindy Lou's Cookies

Big old-fashioned cookies, each on its own dough

Every cookie in the case has a dough made for it, which is the whole technical claim at Cindy Lou’s Cookies and the reason the case looks the way it does: oversized, old-fashioned cookies, crunchy at the edge, dense and buttery through the middle, chewy where it counts. Real butter does the structural work, and the add-ins are specific rather than generic, from lemon zest and macadamia nuts to brown butter, marshmallows and good chocolate. Nothing in the case is trying to be delicate. It reads as a cookie shop rather than a bakery café, and the case is narrow on purpose. The shop’s own description of what it makes has not changed: “big, old fashioned seriously delicious cookies.”

A fine-dining pastry chef making childhood food

Cindy Kruse trained at the Culinary Institute of America and spent 25 years making desserts for adult palates, including a run as executive pastry chef at the Fontainebleau in Miami from the summer of 2005, before turning that technique toward sweets “for the kid in all of us.” The history explains the gap between how the cookies look and how they are built: the register is nostalgia, the execution is professional pastry. The shop sits in Little River and runs as a personal project with her partner rather than as a chain, and the cookies also travel by mail well beyond Miami.

Start with Lemon Cloud, then work the list

Lemon Cloud is the cookie to order first, made with fresh lemon juice and zest and the clearest signature in the case. After that the list opens up quickly: rocky road, red velvet, Nutella swirl, lemon poppyseed, coconut macaroon, oatmeal cranberry white chocolate chip, peanut butter and jelly, and salted chocolate truffle. There is a small non-cookie corner too, with brownies, banana bread, granola, almond tuile and a vegan banana option. The list is long enough that a first visit turns into a sampling exercise, and the format suits it, because cookies travel well and keep. Miami New Times named it Best Cookie in Miami in 2017, and the Infatuation listed it in its bakery guide for 2026, which is a fair summary of how the shop has held its place: one narrow category, worked at a professional pastry standard.