The Cookie Basket Cafe opened earlier this month In a prime downtown Haddonfield location on Kings Highway.
I stopped in last week to check out the cute and cozy cafe which offers a variety of delicious options including a light lunch menu, baked desserts, specialty lemonades, coffee, and even ice cream floats and smoothies!
Offering delicious smoothies is an extra interesting aspect as the location was previously home to popular Groovy Smoovies. The former smoothie focused shop announced in April they were relocating to Miami Beach!
The new Coffee Basket Café in Haddonfield is owned by a mother and daughter team, Denise (mom) and Jill.
The pair have significant experience in the bakery and café business having operated a home based bakery business for years as well as a prior Cookie Basket location which was in Westville.
The pandemic impacted their plans to fully build out their presence in Westville, which brings us to 2024 where they found an awesome new location in Haddonfield!
The Cookie Basket Café is truly located in the heart of the incredibly walkable Haddonfield downtown. Directly across the street is the popular Wildfether Distilling, and a block away is King’s Road Brewing as well as the Heritage Wine Tasting Room.
Cookie Basket Café – Haddonfield
I spent my afternoon visit last week with Jill, who gave me an overview of the Cookie Basket Cafe and all it’s delicious offerings.
The cafe’s interior is very warm and comfortable with soothing colors and flowers, making a perfect spot to relax a bit while visiting the vibrant Haddonfield business district.
The front of the cafe area features a very large floor-to-ceiling window which brings in plenty of light to the space, and connects the inside with the outside sidewalk.
The table at the front of the cafe makes for a perfect people-watching spot!
Multiple tables are set up throughout the space, and the decor includes fresh flowers and other floral decorations… which is why Jill and Denise have coined it a Garden-style Café.
The rear of the cafe features the ordering counter as well as a display table of freshly made baked goods and other decor items.
The pair chose to leave in place the movie ticket booth counter which was created by the former smoothie shop, but repainted it to a more subdued range of pastel colors, and added some weathered design aspects to make it all fit perfectly in the quiet and relaxing space.
Jill tells me she does most of the baking and cooking while mom takes over the business side of the cafe, including the boring but important financials and taxes. It was Denise who actually reached out to me ahead of their opening several weeks ago. Clearly mom was wearing her marketing hat also!
The menu will balance between some ongoing regular favorites as well as adding in new things almost every day.
It was clear to me that Jill has a lot of ideas to match her talent, and she’s really looking to regularly offer completely new items at the Cookie Basket Cafe.
On the menu board for my visit the café lunch menu ranged from smaller bites such as bagels with whipped cheese spread, and cheese quesadilla with salsa and sour cream… to the Hawaiian Isaac (honey ham, pineapple, muenster cheese on a croissant) and a Pulled Pork Sammy (brown sugar BBQ sauce on a sweet roll).
Celebrating the Philadelphia Phillies then upcoming trip to London, Jill was offering an all beef hot dog special!
All of the bakery items are made in-house and on that day they were featuring chocolate chip cookies, iced cutout ricotta cookie and meringue rosettes.
Desserts were Strawberry Shortcake and a Whipped Cheesecake with Strawberries!
And as I mentioned, smoothies are a big part of the menu and for a reasonable 595… the Cookie Basket Cafe was offering flavors of strawberry, strawberry/banana, mango, tropical, peach and mixed Berry!
They offer a variety of refreshing drinks but lemonade is a special recipe, and flavors being offered were pink lavender, Peach and pineapple. I wish I had noticed the pineapple-lemonade when I was at the cafe because I would have tried it!
The Cookie Basket Cafe opens at 10:00 AM and does offer delicious brunch options which of course requires a delicious cup of coffee.
The cafe offers Givens Coffee which was started by a young mom who after a challenging pregnancy was so inspired by the efforts of the hospital staff, started the coffee brand which donates 50% of the profits of each bag to Children’s health oriented charities.
If you are a Haddonfield downtown regular, be sure to make the Cookie Basket Cafe a regular stop!
And if you haven’t walked along Haddonfield’s downtown, there are so many interesting shops, restaurants and now… multiple places for alcohol… it’s really worth an warm afternoon visit!
Links and Locations
Cookie Basket Cafe – Now Open!
223 Kings Highway East
Haddonfield NJ
856-202-5352
Hours: Check online but currently
- Mon/Tues: Closed
- Wed-Sun: 10am-2pm
- Bonus Fri Night: 5pm-7pm
