The slogan at The Cookie Guy, a cookie bakery in downtown Victoria, B.C., is “Warm cookies. Delivered.”
OK, they had me at “warm cookies.” But delivered? Yep—the shop will bring cookies to addresses in downtown Victoria, or you can drop in to pick some up.
“Think of us a cross between Domino’s and a florist,” said the Cookie Guy himself, Matthew Davis, as he stood behind the counter dishing out snickerdoodles and white chocolate chip and almond cookies to a fairly constant line of fans in the middle of a weekday afternoon.
Domino’s? Nah. These warm, chewy cookies were as far from corporate fast food as you could get.
Acting on a recommendation from a local (a Victorian?), I’d made a short pilgrimage to the shop, located a few blocks and a world away from the souvenir shops of Government Street. I had the munchies and was going to buy a cookie. One. I swear.
Then I saw the sign for custom-made ice cream sandwiches.
A girl only has so much willpower.
Davis outlined the process: Choose two cookies. Choose an ice cream flavour (the shop makes its own). Choose a topping (such as chocolate sprinkles or M&Ms). Pay your $7 plus tax, give your name and await your creation at one of the two picnic tables that serve as seating in the tiny shop.
I’d barely had time to glance at my phone before my ice cream sandwich arrived. “The napkins are over there,” the young staffer helpfully noted as she handed it over.
Made with one oatmeal raisin cookie, one chocolate chip cookie and a generous dollop of vanilla ice cream, then rolled in chocolate sprinkles, it was a thing of beauty. Then I tried to take it out of its paper sleeve.
Do not do this.
It immediately half-deconstructed itself. Ice cream is slippery stuff, as I should have remembered from my own ice cream sandwich-making days as a teenage employee of the Lickety-Split Ice Cream Shop in Bramalea, Ontario. (I am not making that name up.)
Hurriedly, I shoved it back into its sleeve, so that I could take this admittedly less-than-Instagram-worthy photo.
But the proof of the pudding was not in the photographing. It was in the eating. And this sandwich, I’m telling you, was a thing of culinary beauty. Warm, chewy cookies. Rich ice cream. Sprinkles that flew everywhere. I was very glad I’d grabbed a few napkins. I’m embarrassed to say how quickly I scarfed it down, especially since I’ve basically been eating and drinking my way around Victoria for the last three days and theoretically shouldn’t have had any spare room in my stomach.
Davis, recently named one of “10 to watch” entrepreneurs by Victoria’s Douglas Magazine, opened the store a year and a half ago. Eventually, he’d like to take it national. But for now, if you want one of those delicious ice cream sandwiches, you’ll have to make a long-distance road trip to Victoria. I don’t think he delivers to Ottawa.
(P.S.: He doesn’t deliver ice cream sandwiches anywhere. You’ll have to visit the shop for those.)
The Cookie Guy is at 1122 Blanshard St. in Victoria, B.C.
Disclosure: I travelled to Victoria with assistance from Tourism Victoria, which neither reviewed nor approved this post.
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