This Little River cookie shop was Miami’s best-kept secret. Now it’s going national
Miami, you’ve had Cindy Lou’s Cookies all to yourself for long enough.
Cindy Kruse, who turned her 25 years of experience as a pastry chef into baking cookies so delicious and refined they might be served on Wedgewood china, has signed a deal to bring her cookies to six major U.S. markets, starting with New York City in September.
Kruse partnered with the combination real estate and food tech platform C3 to open a version of her Little River Cindy Lou’s Cookies at the new Citizens food hall in Manhattan on Sept. 6. Her cookies will be made in ghost kitchens run by C3 in cities such as Atlanta, Los Angeles, Seattle, and across northern and southern California and Texas. Cindy Lou’s will open in another physical location in Atlanta’s Citizens food hall in 2022. The cookies will be available to order through C3’s app, Go by Citizens, as well as popular third-party delivery apps such as Uber Eats and Grub Hub.
“We knew we couldn’t do it on our own, so we had to find the right partner to expand with us,” Kruse said. “In order to grow, you have to let go.”
Kruse and her partner in life and in the business, Eric Paige, opened her roadside cookie shop on Northeast Second Avenue in 2017 and it quickly drew a following from Miami cookie monsters to celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and Ludacris alike. She was soon at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, where it was being discovered by other sweets lovers like C3 founder Sam Nazarian, whose Sbe hospitality group is responsible for the SLS Hotels and Residences.
Cindy Lou’s is one of the first brands the ghost kitchens will spread nationally beyond C3’s own (Umami Burger, Krispy Rice, Sam’s Crispy Chicken, Plant Nation).
Right away, at least 15 of her most popular cookies will be available on the apps and at the New York City location, she said, including her lemon cloud, Nutella swirl, guava-coconut macaroon and red velvet cream cheese swirl.
“We love our product and want other people to experience it,” said Kruse, who added she will be training bakers at all locations across the country to make her cookies to her specifications. “You have to be there to instill your passion and show why you think your cookies are so special.”
In Miami, C3 will operate out of a location in Coconut Grove and Nazarian said he expects to hire as many as 1,000 new employees to work in ghost kitchens around Miami to cook and bake C3’s brands. Some will operate out of converted mobile home kitchens used by REEF NBRHD Kitchens, which also operates ghost kitchens.
Kruse said she isn’t sure whether the expansion will mean her cookies will be more widely available in Miami. But cookie lovers who want to see Kruse and Paige in action can still visit the original, which will remain entirely owned by the couple.
Cindy Lou’s Cookies
Address: 7320 NE 2nd Ave., Little River
More info: Cindylouscookies.com, Instagram.com/cindylouscookies
This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
