The Willow Cakes — Restaurant in Niagara-on-the-Lake

We went here for our wedding cake and had a very upsetting experience with them.

It started with our cake tasting. When we showed their manager our cake inspo, he said that if his team cannot do it, he will "fire them." This immediately made us feel uncomfortable and make Willow seem like a very toxic employer. As a Niagara local, this is not unheard of unfortunately.

Once we signed our contract for our cake we were ghosted for SIX WEEKS. Our wedding planner had to reach out on the week of our wedding to see if we were even going to get a cake after weeks of emailing to follow up. She was met with a VERY rude response from the manager Sean, and was told that the cake would be delivered to the wrong wedding venue at the wrong time.

In addition, when we got the cake, the SAME manager dropped it off at the venue. The cake was not in a box, he didn't tell anyone it was there, and just left. I found it on the bar of the venue unwrapped and had to inform the venue staff that our cake had arrived.

The final cake was anything BUT what we ordered. We ordered one of their standard cakes that was missing one of the biggest ingredients in it, the lemon curd. How do you miss one of the biggest flavours in the cake???? You make cakes!!

I have since found out that this is VERY common after the owner transitioned management to her son. A lot of our wedding vendors have said this is very typical of Willow now, and actually advise their clients to not use Willow.

As a Niagara local, this is heart breaking. My family and I will no longer be supporting this business after being a long time customer since the day...

I don’t know what’s going on with this place, but I’ve had a terrible experience trying to get them to cater sweets for our wedding. If you’re thinking of using them for your wedding please read!

This place came recommended to us by our wedding coordinator at the Pillar & Post, so I emailed them to get a sample order to try some things. I was told via email I could stop by on a Saturday and pick up the sample order, so I drove from Burlington to Niagara one day, and the girls at the counter has no idea about this. The person who had taken my order left, and no one looked into emails/pending orders so they literally had nothing for us and told us to call again, place another order and come back.

After that day, I followed up with one of the owners Sean, who at first did respond. Okay, great, we drove back to Niagara one day and finally got our sampling of stuff (which you pay price for, okay, fine). Once I decided to place my order, I call and leave a message with the bakery, and no one gets back to me. I tried calling another day, no answer again. I emailed them (owner copied as well) to follow up about placing my order, no response. Literally months have gone by with no response - based on their unreliable service, we’re going with another bakery! I’ll be letting our wedding coordinator know about this as well so they can stop recommending these guys. There are so many other bakeries and independent bakers in the area that do good work and actually...

I ordered a cake from Willow Cakes for my daughter's baptism on May 25, 2025 via the following email:

"We're looking for an open Bible design again (I've attached a picture I found online and the one you did for our son) for 30 people. We'd like the same design, just the blue switched to pink and the verse to be: "God is within her, she will not fall. Psalm 46:5" And on the other side: "Baptism of Hailey Louise DeGordick May 25, 2025"

The requested message as well as the instructions were written in the icing, the layout instructions were not followed, and the Bible verse had the word "with" instead of the requested "within". Additionally, the woman who delivered the cake arrived an hour early and instead of delivering the cake through the back door to the lounge as instructed, attempted to hand it to me in the sanctuary as the service was about to begin.

I am not typically one to leave negative reviews, however, following multiple emails, phone calls, and going to their pop up cafe to make them aware of these problems, I have received no response from Chef Catherine offering any compensation for these irreversible errors. I am extremely disappointed in this situation after using Willow Cakes for my wedding cake, my baby shower cake, and my son's...