Mike Stockton discovered his future business the way a lot of Sarasota dads do, through Little League. He coached his son's team, which happened to be sponsored by a cookie brand called Dirty Dough before a single location existed anywhere near Sarasota. Curious, he flew to Utah to try the product himself, and one bite of the "reverse" cookie, a peanut butter cookie with warm fudge hidden inside and a peanut butter drizzle and Reese's pieces on top, convinced him he needed to bring it home. His wife grew up in Sarasota and went to Cardinal Mooney High School, and Stockton, who has lived in the area for about 25 years, used his own construction background to build out the shop himself rather than hiring it out.
Before the storefront opened, Stockton ran Dirty Dough out of a mobile trailer for close to a year, hauling it to events like Waterside and Lakewood Ranch Nights. He is candid that towing and backing up a trailer got old fast, and he was glad to retire it once his permanent location in the new Fruitville Farms plaza, anchored by a Publix past I-75, opened for good. He picked that stretch of Fruitville deliberately: everyone commuting in from the fast-growing east side of Sarasota, Lakewood Ranch and Waterside included, passes his door twice a day.
More Than Cookies Now Dirty Dough Sarasota has since expanded into dirty sodas, Coke-based drinks built on flavored creamers and syrup shots, a format Stockton compares to west coast chains like Sip and Swig, with flavors including key lime and a toasted marshmallow "Happy Camper." New cookie flavors rotate in every Friday alongside mainstays like classic chocolate chip, the shop's best seller, cookies and cream, the reverse, and the brookie, a brownie and chocolate chip cookie hybrid stuffed with caramel. Stockton's personal favorite is a rotational raspberry cheesecake cookie built on a graham cracker crust with cream cheese and raspberry sauce, though he admits his cookie choice depends on his mood, reaching for the peanut butter reverse with ice cream on a bad day and chocolate chip on a good one.
Marketing has stayed simple and local: free cookie giveaways, iHeartRadio spots, an upcoming appearance on Tampa's Joe Show, and steady presence at schools through teacher appreciation events. On roundabouts, Stockton says towing a large trailer at low speed never bothered him much, but he worries about teaching his own teenage sons to navigate them, since Florida's current driving test skips real-road practice entirely in favor of a DMV parking lot course. He closes by pointing to two Sarasota regulars worth knowing, Bob at Casey's Restaurant on Fruitville and Lockwood Ridge, and Leo, who runs Raize Jiu-Jitsu on Lockwood Ridge Road and mentors kids through community step-up programs.
What you'll take away
- Stockton discovered Dirty Dough through his son's Little League sponsorship, then flew to Utah to try the cookies before opening a Sarasota location
- He ran a mobile trailer for nearly a year at events like Waterside and Lakewood Ranch Nights before opening a permanent storefront
- The shop's newest addition is dirty sodas, Coke-based drinks with flavored creamers and shots, in flavors like key lime and toasted marshmallow
- New cookie flavors debut every Friday, with the reverse, chocolate chip, cookies and cream and the caramel-stuffed brookie as mainstays
- He chose the Fruitville Farms plaza specifically because east-county commuters from Lakewood Ranch and Waterside pass it twice a day
“It was sponsored by Dirty Dough before we even had a store here.”
“I flew out to Utah just to try the cookie.”
Places mentioned: Fruitville Farms, Fruitville Road, Lockwood Ridge Road, Lakewood Ranch