Bakerbots Baking — Restaurant in Toronto

3.5 stars ... avoid the tarts and stick to the ice cream sandwiches.. Just need to pick ice cream wisely before adding them into the cookies to prevent a sugar coma.

The sister store to the crazily popular Bang Bang Ice Cream, Bakerbots was pretty popular as well when we were visiting the Bloorcourt store. They don't serve as much flavours of Bang Bang but they definitely shared many of the popular ones including the favourite ice cream cookies. Sometimes you arrive in a good time and only a few minutes wait.. worse case is 7 minutes or so. Not that you can time how the subway runs but it's obvious when a subway made its stop next door! The pile of people is like a huge herd coming in.

This looks much bigger than the Bang Bang store till you realize that most of the store is actually for the staff only and their baking/ice cream area. There really isnt any seating in the store at all. Just a single table with one or two chairs. There are a lot of benches outside so you can relax in the summer sun while enjoying your ice cream.

It was busy when I was here but they do have at least 3 people here working. Similar to Bang Bang, they're constantly moving as quickly as they can through the line. I found their service to be very friendly and allowing me to try a few flavours before deciding on their SJCB Espresso and Matcha flavour.

One thing that I noticed that on a Saturday mid evening, there wasn't as many baked goods here. They had a lot of the cookies for the ice cream cookie sandwiches but they only have a few tarts each and maybe 1/4 of one cake available. The old yelp pictures shows a lot more options. They did have a few of their large cinnamon rolls available.

Cap'n Peanut Cookie - I've had PB cookies before but this was a cool twist here it was peanut brittle so it had shards of caramel in it. Awesome cookie as it was tender and very PB. If you want to use this as part of an ice cream sandwich, I'd recommend a flavour that isn't very sweet as this cookie is already pretty sweet. 4/5

Burnt Toffee - This is creamy and not icy. I tried to find the burnt toffee flavour and it was more of a mild brown sugar. It's a moderate to higher sweetness. I just would have expected a deeper caramel flavour instead of a sugary one. 3.5/5

PB n Chocolate - Another creamy ice cream and the chocolate is more prominent. The PB is milder and didn't show up as much imo. Still a good ice cream that could be paired up with a cookie. 3.5/5

SJCB (Sam James Coffee Bar) Espresso - A very strong coffee espresso flavour that is bold and bright. I liked this one... interesting thing is that they include tiny coffee grinds in this. I'm not sure I like that touch but the flavour is quite nice. 4/5

Matcha - This is one of the less sweet ice creams that has a better balance of the bitter matcha and sweet ice cream base. It wasn't ice but very nice and smooth. I liked the balance and would be a nice addition to a cookie. 4/5

Pecan Butter Tart - I've developed a fondness for these Canadian iconic baked goods... sugar and butter overload in a flakey crust, what's wrong with not blinking from the sugar high. So these tarts are a bit different... they're not filled to the point where the interior caramelizes on the crust, the crust is more of a soft doughy shortbread instead of a flakey crust, and the the interior wasn't gooey. It reminded me more of a really thick corn syrup. I wasn't feeling this one as I found it to be too soft, doughy, and not very flavourful. 3/5

Blueberry Custard Tart - Its the same tart dough found in the butter tarts... very soft and doughy. It fits better with the custard tart but neither the custard or the tart shell had a particular flavour. I was hoping custard have at least some real vanilla bean seeds or something other than mild sweetness. Blueberries were a bit sour. 3/5

Overall, it's a solid spot to get some good ice cream with some really good cookies. It's a lot better than waiting 40+ minutes at Bang Bang and I would say that the service here is...

Over the years, I've thoroughly enjoyed all of their baked goods. Today I left the bakery very uncomfortable with my interaction with one of their associates. I tried very hard to rule out the fact that I was racially profiled, as I I'm a person of colour but I can't shake feeling that this is what this was. As I waited in queue, I noticed that there were no cash only signs, which is what I wanted to ask once it was my turn. I was told no and then I left the line, I was called back and asked if it was small bills not really explaining why. I said I have 20s and told her what I planned on purchasing if that made any difference in regards to change coming back to me. Turns out they had enough, so I shuffled my through the tight space and all of their clients who are waiting in queue way back to the front of the queue to order two pecan bread puddings (There's a sign that gives you the option between pecan and almond) The associate rudely says "I don't know what you're reading. There's only almond" and continues to bicker, so now I have to shuffle my way to the back of the line where the bread puddings were displayed and then shuffle all the way back to the front of the line to pay. I was the only visible minority in queue, and I was also the only one that had this much trouble ordering. There was another associate I'm assuming a manager who explained their cash handlings, which I appreciated. But it should not have taken me initially having my money rejected before even finding out what their till can hold or what denominations I'm carrying in my wallet and shuffling back-and-forth 4 times through a packed queue and embarrassing me in front of people implying that I don't know how to read when in fact, she was the one who was not well informed with their inventory. I left embarrassed as everybody was looking at me as we discussed money and whether or not I can read. The whole interaction was loaded with micro racial aggressions and racial bias. For such a sweet spot, this was a really...

Fridays are usually my rest/recovery days but in checking the forecast over this weekend, the temps are expected to drop significantly (like down to -22° without the windchill) so since my 100 minute run was slated for Sunday, I figured I’d get it done today since I can deal with -9° and leave Sunday for recovery. 🥶🏃🏽‍♀️

I needed incentive, other than wearing my new Saucony Peregrines with extra good tread, so I decided to run to a destination: Bakerbots near Lansdowne station. An Aussie friend and I stopped here for coffee on the day he left back for home while we waited for our brunch table to become available. Their baked goods looked amazing, so I decided to use that as my motivation to run an hour and 40 minutes in the snow. ❄️🏃🏽‍♀️

Shuffled through Little Malta, past my late stepdad’s church and the Maltese Bake Shop, shared my pretzels with some pigeons, and arrived at Bakerbots just before the lunch rush. I asked the woman behind the counter for her recommendation and she handed me a healthy slice of their apple toffee cake with a decaf Americano. ☕️ 🍰

DIVINE. She shared the story about how she accidentally fell on her tailbone yesterday while ice skating at Nathan Phillips Square, which is why she was moving much slower today than normal—her own fault, she said—because she was showing off after the Zamboni finished clearing the ice. “I’ve been skating since I was two” she said, “and I’ve never hurt myself like this before. I was teaching a new Canadian from Iran how to skate and now she probably has no faith in my ability!” She showed me a picture of her and her new friend looking proud on ice skates at City Hall. ❄️❤️

Highly recommend Bakerbots baked goods as well as their friendly, warm and welcoming staff—this...