showing array value in laravel blade

I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong here. I'm including a return from a database in my controller into my blade

when I dump it

<?php dd($count)?>

I get

array:1 [▼
  0 => array:1 [▼
    "STORES" => "40"
  ]
]

But in the blade where I have

Count: {{$count['STORES']}}

It shows Count: and then it's blank after that. The database return only ever returns one count and I'd like to get this working to say "If return is null, set $count['STORES'] = 1, else use $count['STORES']

#php #arrays #laravel