Yamato Bakery — Restaurant in Calgary

BUYER BEWARE, RUDE STAFF.

I have been a Yamato customer since 15 years ago when we moved to Calgary. This review has nothing to do with the quality of the cake (which is excellent, especially the fresh sliced mango cake), rather their extremely RUDE customer service. No quality of pastries can justify a long-time LOYAL customer being called and lectured by staff. A female staff, whom I gather might be the owner has done this on THREE separate occasions within a 2 week span. This third occurence is so unacceptable that I am leaving a negative review, as I already gave them a free pass last week for Mother's Day, yet it happened again this week for my Father's Birthday. Here's what happened:

For Mother's Day: I called ahead on the Wednesday prior, and asked for a cake to be ready by Friday afternoon. Even though Mother's day is on Sunday, I asked for the cake to be ready for Friday as my family is dealing with serious health issues amidst a global pandemic. As most businesses would realize this common sense, the order is simply to have items ready by a certain time, but it is the CUSTOMER's purogative to pick up afterwards. The business also has the right to say no if it's inconvenient. In any case, I received a TEXT message (which isn't professional) on Friday at 5:58pm that says (copy/pasted) "Are you cancelur order? If you don't answer me we just Cancel your order 😡". They also called me maybe 15 minutes before. I was simply not by my phone to answer. Then we made arrangements on the phone (while the staff member was quite rude and pointing the finger at me as if I did something wrong), to have pick up ready for SUNDAY at 3pm, so I arrive at the bakery at 3:45pm Sunday, and the same rude lady told me "We said your order would be ready at 4pm, not 3pm, so you'll have to come back". I told her that wasn't true, but I waited, as I was in a rush, and don't want to head to mother's day dinner without the special cake. The staff member once again begrudingly made me, a loyal customer feel as though I was doing her an inconvenience (2nd strike), never once acknowleding their fault.

For Dad's birthday (3rd strike): Again, I called on the Wednesday prior to place an order. I spoke to the same lady, and I explained that I don't know my exact plans for the weekend, and if we may need the cake by Saturday morning or evening. So, we agreed to have the cake ready for Saturday morning at 11am. Once again, 11am is the earliest it'd be READY so I wasn't at the store right at that time, and my family decided to have the celebration at night so I planned to pick up the cake at ~3/4pm. At 2pm, I got a call from the same lady (and I missed the call as I wasn't by my phone), then I called her back within a half hour, once again, I was LECTURED and YELLED at by a business with whom I am a long-time customer. She told me that they specifically asked their pastry chef to come in the morning to have my cake ready for 11am. Now the thing is, I NEVER asked for the pastry chef to come in early - this is their independent business decision. As per our last conversation she said she'd have the insides of the cake done during business hours on Friday, then add the finishing touches with the fresh sliced mangos on Saturday morning. I felt that was an acceptable solution as it has the flexibility I needed. So, I told her that's how they decided to run their business but has nothing to do with me. She then had the audacity to tell me "THIS IS NOT YOUR FIRST TIME DOING THIS" blah blah blah, and rightfully so, I was angry and hung up on her.

In a way one could argue it was my fault for returning, as in my mind I was thinking "I'll give Yamato one more chance, and it's dad's birthday I want him to have a really special cake", but they've crossed the line here, so much so that I'm taking the time to write a review. I typically don't do this even when I receive poor service because I want to support our local businesses, seeing as I too, am a small business owner. However this behaviour simply is UNACCEPTABLE and I will not...

I needed a last minute cake and called to see when the earliest would be that I could get their fresh mango cake as my family loved it last time we had it. First girl to pick up the phone was very polite and explained their timing for order and how it would not be possible to get the cake this weekend due to high demand of the cake, she asked if I was interested in other cakes, to which I asked which type of fruits they had to make another cake. At this time another lady (which I think is the owner, she had an accent and I've talked to her on my previous order), comes to the phone asking what my inquiry is, I repeat my inquiry about their last minute availability of their mango cake, to which she responds in a rude tone "we can do it tomorrow, you called too late today, our cakes are not magic and need time". I told the lady at no point did I think their cakes were magic or magically made, and asked what time tomorrow would be available to which she responded "after 230pm" when I was in the middle of responding that the time would be too late, the lady, again in a very rude tone responded "okay bye" and hung up. 1st, I do not think your cakes are magic or done magically, or that they don't need time to bake, WHICH IS WHY I CALLED TO INQUIRE. 2nd, I don't understand why you felt the need to kick off the previous, completely capable, polite, and kind employee who was doing an amazing job at answering my questions in a polite, and professional manner, just so you could come in with your attitude and rudeness to essentially hung up the phone on me when I'm trying to give you MY BUSINESS. My first time ordering from you went absolutely amazing, great costumer service and great food. This 2nd time went absolutely horrible ONLY because of the second lady's attitude, which I belive is the owner or main attendant. Which is rather sad to see from a business. The only reason I would ever be ordering from this place again is because of their fresh mango cake if I'm unable to find another bakery that does it for future times. A piece of advice, would be to either leave someone who's polite and professional do the costumer service, or get your attitude in check, cause this experience was absolutely unacceptable and...

I was here to purchase a Japanese cheesecake for my 18th birthday, and I am incredibly satisfied.

For starters, the cake tasted amazing. I asked my friend who visited Japan if it tasted like the real deal, she said it tasted exactly like what she had in Japan. The cake was decorated with beautifully cut fruit. It had a mango slice, strawberry flowers, blueberries, pomegranate seeds and other fruits with a little piece of chocolate saying "happy 18th birthday Reeve." It was perfect, better than anything I could've asked for honestly. There was a wide variety of other Japanese-style goods, such as Hello Kitty cookies styled like Dango 🍡, so there were plain cookies, some with red food coloring and some with matcha. There were butterfly cookies, sesame seed rolls, an insane looking mango cake that I wanted to eat, and a bunch of cake slices to choose from for every kind of person.

The lady who was working there was extremely nice and gave excellent service. She took out a piece of their Japanese cheesecake and told us about how it's made, and that in comparison to other asian bakeries, theirs is the most genuine. Considering my friend told me it tasted exactly like the cheesecake she had in Japan, that seemed to check out. Although she was relatively hard to understand, at least to me, because of her very thick accent, she described things very well and used her hands and gestures to make it all easier to understand. I'm very bad at understanding heavy accents so, naturally, I had a hard time. My mom had no problem though.

In conclusion, everything was amazing. Perfect. Everything I...