Some Of The Best Cookies In Los Angeles Can Be Found At This Gas Station

If you're looking for the best food to eat in Los Angeles, you may find yourself browsing all kinds of recommendation lists. Even the ones specific to cookies are loaded with countless fancy pastry shops and bakeries (and recommend possibly throwing down huge sums of money — for example, one hot spot charges over $150 for a dozen cookies). But some would argue that the best spot to get classics like choc-chip and oatmeal-raisin, alongside some funkier creations, is out of a gas station in the Cheviot Hills neighborhood, between downtown LA and Santa Monica.

The store is called Zooies Cookies, and it's not your average gas station food. It's routinely named as one of the best cookie spots in the city. Plus, you won't have to break the bank, with much of the menu selling for $3 to $4. It's the brainchild of baker Arezou Appel, a chiropractor who left the health care sector behind to look after her kids. She started baking mostly for her kids but soon realized she was onto something great and started selling her baked goods from a United Oil gas station in 2017. The decision to sell from a gas station was pure pragmatism: Her husband owned it, so it was an affordable place to set up shop. As Zooies became a destination in its own right, the gas station location turned out to have its own perks — unlike a regular brick-and-mortar stall, parking is easy, with car-reliant Angelenos also able to fill up on both gas and dessert at the same time.

The menu at Zooies strikes a balance between classics and original creations — and while it might be run out of a gas station, it's a serious business with full-time bakers and a menu that spans over 60 cookies (when everything is available). Even more impressively, founder Arezou Appel is a self-taught baker who learned from scouring recipes and TV shows for inspiration.

Several of the cookies take other classic desserts and transform them into cookies — like the apple tarte tatin, banana cream pie, or Boston cream pie cookies. And there's arguably no single must-try cookie off the menu, as every customer has a different pick for their favorite. A few that often get name-checked are the brown butter chocolate chip (which some media outlets ranked the best cookie in LA, period), peanut butter chocolate chip, strawberry shortcake, and the innovative Panda cookie that mixes white chocolate with Oreo pieces. Appel also nods to her Iranian heritage (her family moved to the States when she was a kid) with a baklava cookie featuring cardamom, walnuts, pistachios, and fragrant rose water. Zooies also caters to dietary restrictions with gluten-free, vegan, and low-sugar diabetic options.

If you don't have a car or just can't make the trek, it's also possible to order Zooies Cookies for pickup or delivery. There's nothing quite like sharing some top-notch cookies with friends or family, then spilling that they've (technically speaking) just been wowed by gas station food.