Stone Artisan Bakers — Restaurant in Brisbane City

A quaint little bakery attached to a local market with a butcher and fruit stand. Service is friendly, helpful and efficient. They have a nice wagyu steak pie, but their chocolate croissant looks better than it tastes; perhaps because I prefer them without glaze. Croissants only available at room temperature; they are unable to warm them. Coffee only available in paper takeaway cups; they do not have any glass or ceramic mugs. They do offer almond, oat, and soy milk alternatives for $0.80. They have many pies and other baked good to choose from, but I was disappointed to see that they do not offer a mince beef and cheese option. However, I do like that they have big bottles of complimentary tomato and barbeque sauce for customers to use as needed; but would be even better if they offered little plastic containers to squeeze the sauce into. They do have napkins and single-use wooden utinsels available, too. While they don't have any proper tables, they do have a ledge with chairs along the window where customers can sit on barstools and enjoy their food while watching the world go by. There is another small circular ledge available for customers who don't mind standing while eating. Unfortunately, they impose a 1.5% surcharge on card transactions. Almost everyone today pays with card, so they should just do what all the other cafes and bakeries are doing these days and set a proper, honest and transparent menu price that includes the assumed card payment processing costs and do away with all the silly surcharges, similar to what every business already does with GST. They could always choose instead to offer a discount to the few customers who still pay with cash. Overall, a good option if you live locally, but not worth a trip out...

** Update, from 3 to 4stars

Went in and was greeted with lovely service, plenty of pies available, (but sweets almost empty!) quality was back to what I remember loving! Thank you.

See old review:

As a local, my housemate and I have been loyal to Stone's for many years, coming back particularly for the pies, complements to the butcher next door.

Over the years we have noticed some areas for improvement and would love to continue to visit and support local business.

We've noticed inconsistencies over time in the quality of the pies, partucularly with the pastry being sometimes under, sometimes over cooked.

Notably the service here is not special. Very rarely greeted politely and it seems like they are too busy to keep up or bother with small gestures.

We recently came in on a weekend and it had obviously been quite busy - the cabinet was empty of pies and we were promised that more would be ready in 20 minutes, so we we would wait; although it took upwards of 30minutes, we were patiently stood out of the service area, so that people could continue to order their bread, coffees and sweets. Poor timing meant that all of a sudden about 7 customers walk in to line-up, as soon as the freshly baked pies come out - and so most of them get snatched up, particularly the ones we had waited for.

You know the old saying, under promise and over deliver. We would love to return to Stones soon and be greeted by service...

I've had only the best experiences at the Stone Artisan Bakery. For several years, whenever I was too busy, I'd order pastries, birthday cakes & sandwiches for 2 dozen people at work, for home parties, morning teas & sometimes just for my children's lunch boxes. I always ring, they know exactly what I want & their prices are competitive compared with many other bakers. The cottage loaf, carraway seeded rye & olive breads are beautifully flavored, warm & fresh. Red velvet cupcakes; lemon slices & cheesecake slices are just the ticket for a fancy 5 star dessert at home. The French style pastries, pain au chocolate, almond croissants are perfect, & my favorite, Danish pastries, are huuge & over- flowing with fruit but you need to order, because they sell out quickly. The coffee is fantastic -as you'd expect! And hot foods like pies & sausage rolls are a decent size, no-body trying to halve things for the sake of an extra 20 cents. Staff are friendly, helping plan event cakes so nothing is any trouble. They always take things to my car, they're efficient, always smiling even when they're surrounded by 30 customers & it's 38 degrees. In decades, I've never had a disappointing transaction. If I forget bags, they've a box, if I forget my PIN, no-one's frustrated, if I ramble on & forget which cake, I want, they have a patient smile & converse happily -whilst doing 10...