Paris Baguette — Restaurant in Greater Strathcona

On December 26, I placed an order for the Chocolate Mousse New Year’s cake via their mobile app for pickup on the 31st. The following day, I received a call informing me that the cake I ordered was unavailable. I spoke with a lady whose name I unfortunately forgot, and I asked if the WEM branch could fulfill my order. She confidently told me that the design or specific cake I ordered was unavailable throughout Edmonton, and my only options were either to select a different cake or get a refund. I inquired about other brown cakes as I wanted a brown cake for New Year’s Eve. She offered me the holiday cake with Nutella flavor from the Christmas collection. She told me to decide and call back after at least an hour.

When I checked online, I saw that the design was labeled “Happy Holidays.” So when I called back, I spoke with Tom. I asked if they could at least change the cake topper from “Happy Holidays” to “Happy New Year” or use a topper with a glass design. He told me that they could not make any changes and that it had to remain as is. I then asked if I decided to cancel the order, whether the refund would be immediate or if it would take some time. My concern was whether the refund would take long so I could avoid canceling if it would take too long, and instead select one of the remaining available cakes, even if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. Tom assured me that the refund would be immediate, and I believed him and agreed to the refund.

However, after placing the refund request in their system, Tom suddenly changed his response and said that the refund may take some time due to the holidays. He mentioned that for credit card refunds, it depends on the credit card company and may take 2 to 3 days. I was frustrated because just moments earlier, he had said it would be immediate, and now he was saying something different.

As of now, the status of my order in the app is still listed as “in progress,” and my order has not been canceled. He did send me a photo via SMS showing the status “order refunded,” but I still haven’t received the refund on my credit card.

I then called the WEM branch and found out that they had the brown New Year’s cake I originally wanted. I placed an order Saturday at the WEM branch and even picked it up today Sunday.

but the status of my order (in Whyte Ave branch) in the mobile app still shows “in progress,” and I haven’t received the refund yet.

This situation has caused me significant frustration and inconvenience. It has been a series of complications that have disrupted my plans. The confusion and lack of clarity from their end have resulted in unnecessary hassle for me!

If it were possible to give a rating lower than one star, I would….

I sent an email to contactus@parisbaguette.com...

The food we ended up with was good, but not what we ordered, they had mistakenly replaced my croissant with a slice of cake. No big deal, I call to see what they can do for me. They gasp, and tell me they'll call me back in two minutes.

They call back and tell me they can offer me pickup or delivery for the correct item, I tell them that I live 20 minutes away so I'm not keen to pickup, but they tell me that's okay and they'll deliver. I give them my address, and they hang up.

Then they call back again and say that they can't deliver because I live more than 10 minutes away. They offer me a refund to my card, I agree, they hang up. They also point out at this point that I can keep the cake, which blew my mind because I was not going to drive 20 minutes out of my way to return the cake.

I get another call about half an hour later saying that they're having technical issues refunding me. The solution I'm offered is an IOU. I'm baffled. I ask them to repeat themselves. They tell me that next time I come in, I can just tell them they owe me money, and they'll give me the cash. I tell them no. They offer me an e-transfer. I say sure. They take my information and hang up.

I got the refund, and then a fifth (and hopefully final, but we'll see) call letting me know they've e-transferred me.

Honestly, getting the wrong food item happens all the time, and it's not a huge deal. The way the staff handled it did make it into way more of a kerfuffle than it needed to be. I think that they should've honoured the delivery offer after I warned them I lived a ways away and they said they could do it. I also think it would've been nice if someone just sat on the phone with me for 5 minutes instead of me needing to take 5 separate calls, ranging from 15s to 2min over the course of about an hour. The food we ended up with was fine, but the experience of dealing with a relatively small mistake was ridiculous, and we likely won't be returning...

I can say I am almost a regular customer here, mostly coming on our weekend evening coffees and pastries. Today noticed they’re advertising about free pastries if you download their app. Well BE AWARE OF FALSE ADVERTISEMENT!! Downloaded their app so that we can get free pastry along with our cake. Asked the Indian guy working there where to choose our complimentary pastry, well his face wasnt comfortable perhaps he knows its a false advertisement. Well he said any pastry from the displays. Went picked up a tart and he said it’s not part of their “pastry”. Well I wanted to try that so bought anyways. Then picked up apple cinnamon pie apparently that’s also not a pastry for them?? Seriously ??? Do they even know anything about baking? They think any customer coming in here is an idiot or have no knowledge about bakery goods (just cuz it’s in Edmonton….) We came from Australia where we have a massive cafe culture, it is awful to see this Paris Baguette bakery(fake bakery) is scamming people openly. Owner thinks he can scam people and grow business by compromising on product quality. Coffee and baked product qualities are sinking faster than titanic and with their deceitful business tactics I won’t be surprised if this place doesn’t last another year… There are plenty of good cafes with good baked products and coffee and atmosphere but seems like they are ignorant to those, thinking customer as idiots. I am Korean myself wanted to support their business; however, it went bit far to accept it anymore. Hope they finally wake up and focus on product quality, then they won’t need to make any false...