Downtown Tucson's cookie game just got a sugar boost ... A late-night delivery joint recently opened at on Congress near everyone's favorite Hi Fi Kitchen and Cocktails. 😀 Insomnia Cookies will deliver cookies to your door until 3 a.m. every night. But even more importantly for us non-college kids, they serve hot cookies during the day, while we are still awake.
This is the second hot cookie place that's gone in downtown in the past year. Nestlé Tollhouse on Stone has more of a mall food court vibe, but Insomnia feels contemporary like an indoor food truck. Don't be mistaken though, this is not a local business. It's a chain that was started in Pennsylvania (apparently in a dorm room 15 years ago).
Insomnia Cookies bakes its cookies fresh to order by the box.
How do the two compare? Samantha and I did some initial cookie research and bought two chocolate chip cookies side-by-side from Insomnia and then Nestlé. In our unofficial contest, the Insomnia Cookie won by a landslide. They were both slightly under $2 and about the same size, but the Insomnia chocolate chip was thicker and substantially moister. It tasted fresher all around.
Now it was time to put the whole Insomnia Cookies menu to the test. Following an employee's suggestion, we found a computer and pulled up the website, where we ordered a Sugar Rush box including a dozen cookies, plus two of the larger specialty cookies on the menu. This allowed us to try every cookie they had. Most of these were familiar combinations like M&M's, sugar cookie, white chocolate macadamia, double chocolate mint and more.
The website was a little wonky though and we weren't actually able to schedule our pickup when we wanted it. I ended up calling the phone number and was received by a startlingly enthusiastic person from the headquarters, who told me the Tucson shop didn't even have its own phone number. When we arrived to pick up our cookies, they had been slotted for a different time zone. So the employees ended up pulling previously-baked cookies for us instead of doing them fresh.
The cookies were soft and warm though, so it wasn't that much of a loss. Our expert tasters Irene, Johanna, Angela, Samantha and I passed around each cookie and talked about what we liked. These cookies have the ideal texture in my mind: They're gooey in the middle and only slightly crispy on the outsides. Cookies that crack, send 'em back! That's what I say ...
This again was an unofficial taste test, but there was one cookie that everyone seemed to agree was the best: the peanut butter chip! Someone even called it the best peanut butter cookie they've ever had. It was the perfect balance of chunky and soft and warm, with that rich nutty flavor. Insomnia also has a Deluxe-sized chocolate peanut butter cup, which hit it out of the park.
The bigtime lesson here: You're risking it by trying to order these things delivered. But if you're in the area and have a cookie craving, Insomnia is your very best option! They also have cookie ice cream sandwiches, which sound pretty dang good right about now ...
Insomnia Cookies is at 345 E. Congress St. Phone: 877-632-6654. It's open 9 a.m. to 3 a.m. Mondays through Fridays and 11 a.m. to 3 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
