Sonoma Braddon — Restaurant in District of Canberra Central

I will never shop here again. The bread is lovely, but no better than from other local bakers. Why I won't go there again is because of one of the extremely rude girls who work there - I ordered online and walked the 20 minutes to Sonoma to pick up my order. The sign on the front window said to enter the store if you had pre-ordered, so I did. When I got inside, this girl raced from behind the counter and demanded to know what I wanted. I explained and she said they didn't have that order then said, and I quote 'Get back behind the line. You are not allowed on this side'. Thankfully another girl told the rude girl that mine was the order they couldn't fill. The rude girl then said 'Oh yeh, we rejected your order because we don't have what you want', noting that there were at least 4 employees and 4 customers also in the store, and she said this at the top of her voice. Thankfully the nice girl from behind the counter mentioned that they did, in fact, have part of my order, to which the rude girl said 'well do you want part of it then'. I told her that, if she could speak to me nicely, then yes. She literally walked away and stood behind the coffee machine! A guy thankfully prepared the part of the order they did have. I paid and left. I will never be back. Should the owners wish to speak to me, I am MORE than happy to let them know which girl was the extremely rude one. I do not check my gmail account, however I am sure you have my details on file as I was INTENDING on becoming a...

I live across the street and from time to time I get fresh bread from Sonoma. I was NOT impressed with the experiences there today. I ordered a sausage roll for my boy and the salesperson asked me if I wanted to have tomato sauce on the side - I said why not. I also got a Cookie for $4.5 so I expected to pay $12.5 but he charged me $13. So I asked if the cookie is $5 actually. He said no - the cookie is $4.5. I got puzzled so I seid him why there is an extra $0.50 here as sausage roll is $8. At this point - he said because you wanted tomato sauce. I was not impressed with this- It is ok to charge some money on tomato sauce but customer should be informed 2 it is a little squeeze of tomato sauce in the tiny paper cup is it really worth $0.50? 3 knowing he has charged me for tomato sauce he should tell me upon my question straight away instead of letting me asking a couple of questions to get the answer

Sonoma is a premium brand and has good quality and wants to charge a premium price - that is all understandable.

But this is not cool. You need to tell customer - do you need a squeeze of tomato sauce? It is 50 cents - are you ok with it? Some people might not be ok with it? It is a personal choice. Not everyone is rich and can buy Sonoma all the time.

2024 Dec 01 update I changed the rating to 4 as it is not fair to rate it as 2 given a small incident and in fact it is a good bakery. Only reason it is 4...

The bread is usually great quality and pastrys/cakes decent (but pricey)

Unfortunately the online ordering can be improved as there are too often mix ups. Some issues:

there needs to be a clearly defined pick up area, signs outside encourage you to order online to 'skip the queue' but too often you're left standing near the coffee machine and need to actively flag someone down (usually when they're already in the middle of something)

they need to only select 'ready for pick up' when it is actually ready, almost everytime I order for pick up asap, it goes straight to the ready to pick up screen. I can then go to collect 10 minutes later only to be told it isn't ready yet, In one instance the item was going to take another 30 mins. I dont mind waiting (whilst home) - I just need to know before I leave to collect.

don't list items that aren't available. Today and on at least 3-4 occasions in the past few months I've either arrived to be told something isn't available, it's been refunded automatically, or I've been told via phone call. Perhaps look to automate stock levels?

They're the three major issues with online ordering. Staff are generally friendly but too often let down by the tech. I reached out to sanoma to offer some of these suggestions in private however haven't received a response.

Look forward to an improved system in the future as we enjoy our...