Is it worth a FOUR HOUR wait? Yes.

I arrived at Gideon’s Bakehouse in Disney Springs close to opening around 10:15am. It wasn’t early enough. By the time I arrived, I had to wait in line TO GET IN LINE. The nice woman at the front taking down phone numbers said it would be about two hours, ten minutes. Well, cookies are my jam, and I had been wanting to try this place since the first time I saw it last November when they still were building it. Since then, their reputation has only grown tremendously, and had to try it for myself to see if the cookies lived up to the hype. So I waited. By the time my turn in line came up, the wait was up to FOUR HOURS! Who would wait in line for four hours for a cookie? I guess I would.

Gideon’s Bakehouse specializes in artisanal small batch cookies that taste amazing. These aren’t artisanal in that weird sense that sometimes comes with that word. There aren’t flowers in the batter or snails or weird herbs no one can pronounce but you can only find on a mountaintop in the Himalayas. These are artisanal because it takes an artist to come up with this mix of flavors that melt in your mouth. It takes an artist to balance the richness of the cookie so that it’s not overwhelming but truly satisfying. And it takes an artist to create a cookie that is both soft and flavor-packed at the same time. That’s what these cookies are like.

The store itself reminds me of something you’d find in Diagon Alley. The interior is dark and gothic and full of mystery making you wonder who is behind the story of this place. It has books on the crooked shelves, flickering lights, and even candles you can buy. But what dominates the room is the cookie and cake display. Those cakes are the size of a mountain but still look so yummy. As they put it on their website, they are into buttercream! Guess what? So am I! And the cookies are huge – both in size and in flavor. At first I was worried they would have TOO many ingredients and it would overwhelm the cookie, but there is a really good balance between cookie and stuff in the cookie. No wonder they put a limit on the number you can buy at once. If they let you, you might empty the store and there’d be nothing left for the rest of us.

Love that they have limited edition cookies, flavors they only bring out certain times of the year, and secret slices of cake. It makes you feel part of something special; fortunate to take part in the cookie revolution. Each one of these is a treasure unto itself. For my first venture into the cookie realm I went with triple chocolate and coffee cake. The coffee cake (which is limited and once they sell out each day – that’s it) tasted like a coffee cake, but the cake part was definitely all cookie. The topping though crumbled away as you might expect from an actual crumb cake. So good and soft. The triple chocolate was rich, but unlike some I’ve had it didn’t overwhelm you or make you feel like it was too much. Each bite had this rolling dark chocolate flavor underneath – almost like a dark chocolate truffle. Just so yummy. Certainly magic is involved for these cookies to taste this good. Maybe a spell is being put on all of these people? Something is going on when people are willing to spend four hours for a cookie. Gideon must be the pied piper of cookies because I’ll be back, too.