Trafiq Cafe & Bakery — Restaurant in Vancouver

Extremely shocked and dissaponted in trafiq's customer service and care. They are clearly not equipped to handle their online ordering service with competence.

I have been a lover and supporter of trafiq's cakes for years, and recently ordered 3 slices of cake from their online store thinking it would be more convinient - IT IS NOT. I realized after placing the order that I had accidentally selected the incorrect date (their calendar on the website is not layed out as the regular Sunday-Saturday calendar that mostly every other platform is). Not even 10 mins after I placed my order, I emailed them to ask if I could either change the date of pickup, or cancel the order.

I also tried to call multiple times that day and the next morning to no avail since they do not answer their phone during service hours - which is also very strange.

The next morning, I recieved an email saying, 'Unfortunately we are unable to change your order,  We will see you tomorrow.'

Since I was not going to be in Vancouver to pick up the cakes the next day, I emailed them back requesting a cancellation of the order, and informing them that I was not going to be in the city to be able to pick them up.

I recieved an email back that said 'Unfortunately as clearly stated on our website we do not offer refunds or cancellations. See you tomorrow,'

I was completely shocked as this response showed no basic customer service etiquette or care. They did not even read or chose to ignore me saying I was clearly going to be out of the city - and offered zero empathy, or ways to rectify the situation.

I sent an email expressing my frustration, and received an email back with the following :

"We are a small business and unfortunately we try our best to accommodate changes. In your case we are unable to do so because of the timeline (less than 48 hours) and we cannot re-add them to the inventory on the website.  We try to be clear throughout the ordering process on our online store and mention our policy several times.

It is clear that you are upset and for that I am sorry. If you want to give your cake slices to a friend as you are going to be out of town please let us know and we will change the name on the order."

A few things about this response that is wildly frustrating:

48 hours notice, to change the pick up date of 3 slices of cake? Not even a custom order by any means - slices of cake that I could have just gone in and picked up without even ordering online?? 'we cannot re add them to the inventory on the website' - this is their inability and lack of resource and knowledge. Just because they are technologically untrained to properly handle their own ecommerce system, does not make a reason to take your customers money, and not fix a situation. there is no checkbox to agree to terms of service, or review them before checkout keeping customers money without providing them the service or product that they paid for is UNACCEPTABLE, not even issuing store credit is terrible customer practice. 'I'm sorry you're upset' is not an apology, and certainly is not best practice for dealing with customer complaints.

I hope that trafiq can learn and improve, however I will NOT be returning as a customer, and am deeply put off and...

MAY 10, 2025: this place is AMAZINGGGGG!!! this actually satisfied my cake cravings so well and literally everything was such special treat.

the salted caramel cake was perfectly made—the vanilla cake was moist, soft, and the perfect base. generously separating each layer was this incredibly fluffy and light cream that wasn’t too sweet or salty, which was perfect for me because i honestly don’t even like caramel that much! despite that, i really enjoyed the caramel injection because it was such a nice punch of flavour between the light layers of cake and cream. the earl gray cake was also amazing, with a very subtle fruity and flowery taste. the cakes are seriously SO FLUFFY and HAD THE PERFECT MOIST TEXTURE I CANT EVEN. but make sure you bring some milk or water because it can get a bit sweet in the end !

the chunky monkey was also so special, unique, and delectable. the solid texture wasn’t what i was expecting (the top part is a bit tough), but it was still perfect and easy to cut through with a fork. a bit hard to describe the mouthfeel honestly, but it was kind of like a bunch of doughy, dense, pastry insides crammed together. maybe that doesn’t sound appetizing but trust me it was AMAZING. the banana flavour was strong and perfectly paired with the sweet chocolate.

the mini chocolate decadence was also great, and the perfect size because it was sweeter than the other cakes—but it shared the same light, fluffy cream and moist cake.

even the savoury food was incredible, which i was honestly surprised by! the focaccia bread was perfectly toasted, crispy and warm, while also being super fluffy. the melted cheese had the toastiest, enticing aroma that you just couldn’t resist, and even the arugula paired so well with the saltiness of the rest of the ingredients.

i definitely want to return to trafiq again and try other unique cake flavours in the future!!!!!

——————————————————————— JULY 13, 2025: I CAME BACK! and it was just as yummy as ever 🙂 this time, i tried the neapolitan cake which had the perfect sweet balance of strawberry and chocolate flavours. i also tried the sakura cake, which didn’t actually have much (if any) of a cherry taste, but a really nice, authentic, strong matcha flavour that i loved. both cakes were immaculately soft and fluffy, like they literally dissolved in my mouth (but in the best way possible). the same goes for the texture of the frosting/cream, which was so light that it was actually jiggly in my mouth !

i also tried the pesto chicken on ciabatta, which was so delicious. the exterior ciabatta provided a nice crunch, and the pesto was SO DELICIOUS and paired so well with the savoury chicken. i don’t understand how they’re so good with SAVOURY FOOD AND SWEETS !!! i got the mediterranean grilled cheese wiTh chicken, and it was also very yummy. it’s saltier than i remember and the cheese used was different, but i loved how all the ingredients worked together in...

I've spent more than $100 on their cakes in the last year across several visits but I'll look elsewhere for the future.

I liked them because they have at least 2 flavours that are yummy, portion sizes for the slices of their round cakes are generous, and they are nearby. Blueberry lemon and earl grey are the best of the bunch. They haven't changed their menu much so it's easy to get tired of your favourites. They used to have a lemon lavender that was even better. Surprisingly, it's the more "common" flavours like decadent chocolate and carrot cake that underwhelm. Salted caramel, I couldn't eat more than a few bites of because of how rich and punchy the flavours were. You can see the trend here if you observe closely.

Onto our negative experience... We ordered a carrot cake for a birthday 5 days in advance as it was the last flavour we haven't tried. Afterwards, I suggested to my wife that we try a slice and change our order in case we didn't like it. After tasting it, we left a voicemail more than 48 hours before to change our cake to a more expensive different flavour. 48 hours is their regular cutoff time for ordering. We get a call back and were told over the phone that they've already made our cake and can't change or cancel it. When I pick it up, I see several dozen boxes of cakes in their 2 fridges ready for pickup and I'm told that my cake is yummy and made fresh.

So I'm being told that: a) we can't change our order because our cake is made or being made more than 2 days before b) our cake is freshly made.

You can't have it both ways. It left a poor impression in my mind.

From the volume of cakes they had ready for pickup on a single day alone, I don't imagine it would've been hard to change our order more than 48 hours in advance if they made the attempt to adjust course. This isn't a customer service issue but a management one as they...