If you’re in Panama City, Florida, and have a sweet tooth, you might want to know which are the best places to get dessert. Whether you prefer cakes, cookies, pastries, or ice cream, Panama has a great food scene and offers something for every kind of sweet tooth, so head on out and check out these spots.
The Press
Image via Flickr under CC BY 2.0 by Vanilla and lace
Located at 310 Harrison Ave. in downtown Panama City, The Press is a coffee shop serving up delicious drinks and your favorite snacks from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day of the week. It emerged in the aftermath of the devastating Hurricane Michael in 2018 as the city rebuilt. The Press is a gathering place where you can use a booth for a workspace while enjoying some coffee and crepes or other goodies, or you can fully relax while eating. The shop offers every coffee drink you could want, as well as beverages such as teas and hot chocolate.
The food items center around delicate crepes that come in several options. The classic French crepe comes sprinkled in sugar. If you’re a Nutella fan, you’ll want to try Riding with the King, the shop’s signature crepe,with banana, Nutella, and peanut butter. If you love berries, try the Fruitie Tootie, featuring blueberries and cream, or the Strawberries and Cream, which is as the name says, fresh ripe strawberries and whipped cream wrapped inside a soft crepe. If you like a little cheese with your fruit, you’ll love the Apples and Brie Cheese, with warm cinnamon, baked apples, and soft brie.
Fat & Weird Cookies
Fat & Weird Cookies has a storefront at 2540 Jenks Ave. in Panama City. The store is open Fridays from noon to 4 p.m., but cookies are available for local pickup Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The delicious and unusual fat cookies are available to order online at any time, and you can select local pickup as the delivery option when checking out. The orders generally take two days to prepare and be ready for you, so plan ahead for the best, weirdest cookies around.
The shop is always coming out with new limited flavors and has a selection of standard flavors you can find in the shop regularly. The tall, lumpy cookies have unique flavors and combinations you’ve probably never had before, and some even have a soft cream filling. If you like cheesecake, try the Razzle Dazzle, which has a raspberry cheesecake core, white chocolate chips in the cookie base, and a graham cracker crumb topping. The Cherry Bomb is a cherry red cookie with a lime frosting core.
Keto Kreations
Keto Kreations specializes in low-carb ketogenic baked goods. This shop is located at 2117 E. Third St. and is open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Keto Kreations offers fresh-baked gluten-free bread, muffins, and cakes that are also available to ship and can be refrigerated or frozen for later. Some of the goodies available from their shop are made with almond flour, cream, coconut oil, and eggs and sweetened with stevia or other alternative sweeteners.
You can treat yourself to jumbo cinnamon rolls or a 7-inch chocolate chip cookie cake, or perhaps you’d like to try the triple chocolate muffin for a triple hit of chocolate. The shop offers several flavors of cheesecake, including a chocolate marbled cheesecake with a cookie dough crust. The pound cakes come in strawberry and lemon flavors, as well as a Unicorn variety with colorful swirls, and are available by the slice.
Cook Girls’ Bakery
Cook Girls’ Bakery is so popular that it’s booked until 2022 for custom orders, including wedding cakes, but you’ll find plenty of delicious sweet goods in the bakery case every week. The bakery is located at 748 W. 15th St., and you can drop by on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. or on Saturday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. to browse the shop’s assorted desserts.
You can enjoy all the bakery dessert staples, such as brownies, cupcakes, and cookies, and more. You can find decorated seasonal sugar or chocolate cookies, buttercream sugar cookies, and signature cookies, including pecan chocolate chunk, sprinkle sugar, and snickerdoodle. The brownies and bars include double chocolate chunk brownies and white chocolate pistachio blondies. Adorable little macarons come in tantalizing flavors such as red velvet and almond.
Riviera Ice Cream
To find the best ice cream, you might want to head across the bay to Panama City Beach and check out Riviera Ice Cream at 12700 Front Beach Road. It serves up gourmet ice creams, sherbets, and sorbets, as well as fine chocolates and other sweet treats. It exclusivelys use super-premium Bassets Ice Cream from the oldest ice cream maker in the country, so come prepared for some extra-creamy goodness.
At Riviera Ice Cream, you’ll find many classic flavors of ice cream as well as a few novelty ones. You can treat yourself to a cone of the ever-popular French vanilla or mint chocolate chip flavors. It might be hard to choose between the butter pecan we all love or the pralines and cream flavor, which is vanilla ice cream swirled with caramel and candied pecans. Not a fan of pecans? Then try the butter almond or the butterscotch vanilla for that sweet buttery taste.
Dessert makes life a bit sweeter. If you’re craving something sweet, then head out the door to any of the places on this list, and you won’t be disappointed. Whether you like cookies, cupcakes, crepes, or ice cream, or you need something delicious that’s low-carb, you can find it in and around Panama City. What’s your favorite type of dessert? Have you tried any of the treats on this list? We at Panama City Toyota would love to know what you think is the best spot for dessert in town, so drop us a line and let us know.
