Crave Cupcakes Willow Park — Restaurant in Calgary

And here it comes. I’ve been purchasing from Crave for over 15 years. From its inception, I have recommended it to many. I was a very frequent customer buying cupcakes for special occasions and for myself (of course) along with cookies and birthday cakes for friends and family. I try to support local bakeries, to help encourage our local economy.

Being someone who has baked for a few decades personally, I can appreciate the hard work that goes into producing a high quality product on a consistent basis. It has its challenges.

Why I’m giving one star after all of these years:

a) Decline of product quality - your product is no longer consistent in that the quality and size no longer parallel the purchase price - if you want to charge more for your product, ensure the quality remains the same as well as the portion size.

b) Your less than agreeable and entitled staff you choose to employ at this location repeatedly has declined your service standard greatly over the last few years. I remember from 5 years ago and further back your staff was consistently excellent. Now? Slow, rude, and unwilling to accommodate customers with simple requests. Now the serving standard within the store itself is having one person to box cupcakes for very long line-ups and maybe one person to ring them in at the till (if you are that lucky) making your other customers in the line wait needlessly when you have 4 or 5 people working in the back and of which none bother to come and assist when they can see the long line-ups.

c) Despite your astronomical growth over the last 5-6 years especially, which includes the financial ability to implement a factory-like cookie machine (say good-bye to hand-made cookies everyone) as well as expanding into other cities/provinces, you need to charge an additional $15 “out of season fee” for an order of a dozen cookies where the ordered item is a cookie that is a regular menu item (and of which I have ordered many times over the years) and uses the same ingredients, because I request to have it made by hand like your cookies used to be before your factory cookie machine came into place altering the quality of your cookies currently. Your reasoning: “we don’t have the supplies to bake it at this location” sooo flour, butter, sugar…What ingredients do you make your cupcakes with again? So now I am being told to pay $3.50 x 12 cookies = $42 plus $15 for an “out of season” fee = grand total of $57 for a dozen cookies. As far as I know we haven’t reached the economic status of Venezuela yet, so I have no idea how you can justify such a price for a regular chocolate chunk cookie. Not a single clue.

I’ve always accommodated your order request in terms of ordering protocols and specified pick-up times and I have appreciated being treated like a valued customer years ago in the past, but I have to say, I’ve noticed your recent increased growth has compromised your product and your customer service and appreciation towards the loyal customers who helped not only stabilize your business through Covid, but assisted in your company’s growth over the last decade and a half.

From a personal and moral perspective, I don’t believe I can really support a local company that doesn’t value the loyal financial and support (through earlier countless verbal recommendations)I have brought to it for 15+ years. Very disappointing a local company refuses to appreciate such...

Roast to Crave Cupcakes at Willow Park Village

If there is a way for you to be less accommodating to your customers, I’m sure you will find it.

Business phone number?? The store phone number is a secret.

Business phone number?? The manager’s phone number is secret. The manager doesn’t communicate over the telephone, even though it’s 2023.

If you call the store - if you’re so lucky as to still have the store phone number - with a simple request: please put six cupcakes in a box, I’ll be there in an hour. The answer is No.

The way Crave wants to serve (?!) their customers - God knows why - You must call the Centralized Order Line, place your order 24 hours in advance, and then maybe you can get those cupcakes.

Never mind that there are at least 4 people working in the store, inches away from the cupcakes and the boxes. No. Without any highfalutin’ intensive training even I could put six cupcakes in a box in under 30 seconds. No, not gonna do it.

No. Reeks too much of basic Customer Service 101, to take a simple SIMPLE order over the phone.

It boggles the mind to think that a retail customer-oriented business won’t take a simple phone order. Not can’t. Won’t.

The store is called Crave ffs! Woe betide the poor sap who has a craving for red velvet cupcakes. This useless bakery thinks you should have to wait 24 hours to fulfill it.

Funny thing though, Glamorgan Bakery, the busiest, most popular bakery in the whole City of Calgary - they take orders over the phone. Even on Saturday, their busiest day, you can phone them and ask them to put something aside for you, you’ll be there in an hour, and they’ll do it. Wow, isn’t that amazing!!!

Edited to add: As per your direction, I just tried to phone the number to expand on the pathetic lack of 21st century Customer Service here. Pathetic! No real person to speak with, just a ~4 min recording on a loop. Keep up the great...

We had Crave do our wedding for a small cake with mini cupcakes. The experience was a challenge from the start. First they were hard to get ahold of for weddings, turns out the person doing weddings was brand new. They were difficult to contact and it was a hard to get our deposit in. The staff member showed no initiative to take our money and we had to be on them to ensure we could even place an order. The week of the wedding they got ahold of us to let us know they also needed a signed document for the cake stand rental, they had known we needed this for about 4 months yet waited until our busiest week to tell us.

We had friends picking up the cake for on the day. When they arrived the product wasn't ready for pickup at the time we specified they had to wait for them to finish everything. They also completely forgot the gluten free part of our order. The staff told our friends we "Called head office to cancel the gluten free order" the interesting part is we confirmed after that we payed for gluten free portion and were never refunded for this. They told our friends they would throw them in for free, even though they were already payed for. Our friends waited for the gluten free to be made and were able to get it to our wedding just in time. The product tasted good, the cake was surprisingly basic for the price we paid. I would be fine buying from them in person for one off but don't touch them for weddings.

We have friends who are starting the wedding process right now and have had the same issues with getting the order in. They have since pulled the order since they were having the same...