Summer Sweets: Grandma’s Cookies Serves Inexpensive Indulgences

on South Main Street delivers huge, old-fashioned treats for prices out of an earlier era.

Cookies, like everything else, go in fashionable trends. Your supersized mall cookies lead to a pendulum swing to miniature bite sized cookies. Crunchy grocery store cookies lead to super soft gooey cookies. The average dessert labeled “cookie” changes every few years. Except at Grandma’s.

Whenever I visit, this tiny Main Street storefront always has a line out the door. The building is just wide enough that once you pay for your loot, you can elbow your way back past the line and apologize as you angle out the door.

In the name of science I decided to be a big spender for this review. I got two of every cookie they had on offer that day. One for me, one to share. The total for my extravagance? Eight dollars. I left with a bag so large it looked like I mugged a Keebler Elf.

Grandma’s Cookies are satisfyingly large chewy cookies all built off the same base. Honestly, the biggest texture difference between the coconut cookies and the peanut butter cookies is what type of crunch you prefer. Sugar cookies versus snickerdoodle comes down to whether you prefer cinnamon or sugar sprinkles. They make one style of cookies at Grandma’s and they make it exceptionally well.

If I tried to make a soft cookie this size I’d end up with something tooth crushingly hard at the edges and still unbaked in the middle. The even consistency of texture from the edge to the middle is impressive in a soft cookie.

Grandma’s flavors are all traditional favorites from childhood. I sampled sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, peanut butter, peanut butter chocolate chip, oatmeal, oatmeal chocolate chip, coconut, and, of course the straight up chocolate chip cookies. The texture of these is extra impressive. The rest of the cookies come in a familiar flat disc shape. Grandma’s chocolate chip cookies are an overflowing half dome clearly made by an ice cream scoop. How they keep the middle fully baked and the texture so soft at the edges is one of life’s great mysteries.

Grandma’s Cookies are pretty much the polar opposite of the equally outstanding cookies at . They’re soft, almost creamy, buzzing with sugar, and presented in familiar childhood flavors. It’s a real delight that St. Charles offers two equally good yet wildly different bakeries.

At less than a dollar each, Grandma’s Cookies are a wonderfully affordable indulgence. If you’re tired from wandering Main Street but not yet ready for dinner, they’re the perfect sized budget pick-me-up.

This isn’t a cafe. There’s no wi-fi and no place to mingle. You go in, get your cookies, and go back out. There are plenty of public benches and half hidden parks along Main Street, but in all likelihood your cookie won’t last that long. Enjoy it for the quick and tasty sugar hit it’s meant to be.

I rate this bakery an A for doing one thing exceptionally well and charging a fair price for their treats.