Breezeway Cookies make triumphant return

Posted by × 02/01/2017 at 2:20 pm

By Joel Delgado and Clara-Meretan Kiah

Breezeway Cookies are more than just cookies.

Over the years, these melt-in-your-mouth delicacies sold at the POD@Breezeway Cafe, affectionately known as “crack cookies” by generations of students, have become a staple of the FIU experience. They’re a tradition shared and cherished by students, alumni, faculty and staff alike.

“Crack cookies are an essential part of FIU. When you’re a freshman, the first thing they tell you about is crack cookies,” said freshman art history major Briana Lutzi. “We’ve all had that experience.”

“These [cookies] are lit. They’re amazing,” said freshman theatre major Jash Sanghavi. “They melt in your mouth, and they’re addicting.”

So when shopFIU and the Office of Business Services announced they changed the cookie recipe on social media, the reaction from the university community was swift.

First, it was shock that the recipe would change in the first place.

Then came anger when the new cookies did not measure up to the ooey-gooey goodness of the original recipe.

Everyone from students and alumni to faculty and staff took to social media to voice their displeasure with the switch, pleading with shopFIU to bring back the Breezeway Cookies they know and love.

The reason for the switch in the first place?

Roger Clegg, the manager of FIU’s distribution service Aramark, says they were on the hunt for a bigger, better, “craveworthy cookie.” The company tested new recipes until they came up with a cookie twice the size of the original, and formulated with all-natural ingredients and without trans fats, artificial additives or preservatives.

“The cookie was consumer tested and approved with great results,” Clegg said.

While the new cookies will continue to be sold at the Breezeway Cafe, the need to bring back the original cookies was evident.

“You know the old saying, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’? That definitely applied here,” Clegg said. “Overwhelmingly, we heard that while the new cookie was good, there was nothing like the old cookie.”

The good folks at shopFIU heard the message loud and clear.

Less than two weeks after the switch, the announcement was made: Breezeway cookies would make a triumphant return on Feb. 1 at midnight, with the first 20 people in attendance receiving a free cookie.

And the cookies’ return was a success. More than 60 people lined up outside the Breezeway Cafe in the middle of the night on a Tuesday to taste that original, ooey-gooey recipe, many leaving with bags of four and five cookies.

“When [the cookies] went away, it was honestly not the same,” said Lutzi. “And then they came back, and it’s like college was restored. That little bit that was missing came back.”

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