Review: MidnigTreats (Old Town Alexandria, Virginia)

 

I rarely go anywhere, but this summer, I went to a wedding in Old Town Alexandria, so of course I had to try the local vegan bakery! MidnigTreats is a cookie shop, so there weren't necessarily tons of options, but having no dedicated vegan bakery anywhere near me, this was still exciting.

I got there first thing in the morning so I got to buy a discounted box of yesterday's cookies.

The top two cookies were two of the specials--they rotate out a variety of cookies in the "special" category every couple of weeks--coconut caramel and brown sugar. The bottom two are ones they have on offer all the time, a chocolate chip cookie and "birthday bash," which is basically a sugar cookie with sprinkles mixed in.

The chocolate chip and "birthday bash" were fine, nothing too special, aside from being huge. They were good, but I could probably find just as good vegan options at my local markets, which do sell a vegan option or two. The others, though? Amazing.

The coconut caramel was soft and rich with a lovely complexity of flavors, but my absolute favorite was the brown sugar. It was the kind of good that makes you freeze in place and close your eyes when you put it in your mouth.

Now, this was a lot of cookie, so for a few days during my trip I pretty much had cookies, soy milk, and plain fruits and veggies for my meals--not great for a person if you do it in regular life but if you only leave home every 4-5 years (which isn't the way I used to live, but hey, thanks COVID), it's fine.

So that's the cookie part of our review. The cookies are the good part, if you want to pay kind of a premium for cookies. I think it's worth the price for a treat, considering the size, but you'll pay about $4 or $5 for a cookie here.

The service part of our review? Well...

I will say that just about everywhere I went in Old Town Alexandria, people I encountered in service roles in stores were surprisingly rude, and that's coming from somewhere most parts of the country say is a "rude" region (the northeast). And my friends also mentioned the rudeness of waiters, etc. in restaurants.(Honestly, not just rude--outright mean, they said.) So it could just be that you have to be prepared for Old Town being super unkind. But the person who sold me these cookies acted like my presence was a horrible imposition and sighed and rolled her eyes when I asked questions. She was extremely put out that I asked for a lid and straw for my drink. It was remarkable. It wasn't the kind of blank, robotic, no small talk kind of thing that people from more chatty parts of America consider rude about where I live. It was outright nastiness.

Given that this is the case everywhere in the area, it's not like I can say you should avoid this place in favor of others. Just know that if you go here, you won't be treated with much humanity.

All things considered, I give this place a 3 out of 5.