Sugar Blooms and Cakes Inc. — Restaurant in Winnipeg

I have had enough of the consistently poor service at Sugar Blooms and Cakes. Despite placing orders well in advance, every single time I go to pick up a pre-ordered cake, it turns into a frustrating, unnecessarily long, and disrespectful experience.

First of all, the pickup process is a mess. There is no organized system for retrieving orders. I am always asked the same long list of questions: what kind of cake I ordered, what size, what time, my name, my phone number — everything — as if they have no record of the order at all. This back-and-forth usually takes 15-20 minutes or more just to locate one cake. Pre-ordering is supposed to make things faster and more efficient, not more complicated.

What is even more insulting is that I have been questioned about whether I even placed an order. I have literally been made to feel like I was lying — standing there in front of staff who look at me with skepticism, instead of simply checking their records. It is humiliating and completely unacceptable. I should not be treated like a fraud for showing up to claim an order I rightfully placed and confirmed.

To make matters worse, there have been multiple times when the cake was not even ready at the scheduled pickup time. I was told to arrive at a specific time, only to be told I had to wait while they finished assembling the cake. What is the point of scheduling a pickup time — or being assigned a pickup window — if the cake is not going to be ready? It is completely unprofessional to ask a customer to wait around while the product is still being finished. This is not just a minor oversight. It reflects a basic lack of planning and respect for the customer's time.

I decided to give my feedback directly to the owner, hoping for accountability. Instead, I received a response filled with excuses. I was told they handle over 175 cakes on Saturdays, that their three front-of-house staff get overwhelmed, and that they sometimes pull help from production. While that may explain part of the chaos, it does not justify poor systems, disorganized pickups, or rude and unprofessional service. If you cannot manage production or fulfill orders efficiently, then you need to scale back operations, hire more people, or rethink how you are running your business. But do not pass off poor customer experience as an unavoidable consequence of being “too busy”.

The truth is, these are problems with simple solutions — better order tracking, better scheduling, better staffing, and better customer service training. The fact that these have not been implemented shows a clear lack of accountability and leadership.

To be honest, I am not even a fan of their cakes. The only reason I have continued to order from them is because my parents prefer them. But after this most recent experience, I am done. I will no longer be ordering from Sugar Blooms and Cakes. No product is worth this level of stress, disrespect, and mismanagement.

And it is not just the service — the product quality has been disappointing as well. I have found eggshells in one of their cakes, and the presentation of another cake (the crème brûlée cake) was sloppy, with sugar stains drooping down the side. The least you can do is ensure that the cake is clean, finished properly, and safe to eat.

I am not only looking for good products but also a service that respects my time and trust. This business offers neither. It offers poor-quality products, an unreliable pickup process, and service that clearly does not value its customers.

If you value your time, your expectations, and being treated with basic respect — go...

I called the other day to order a celebration cake for April 25th. I made sure to check the calendar before I called to make sure it wasn't fully booked, which it wasn't. I called and the lady initially said "that date is fully booked" but then I said to her " I'm on your website right now and it's not fully booked yet" so then she proceeded to ask my which design I wanted. Since it was my first time ordering there I wasn't prepared to choose a design. So I was just wanting to go with the first design since I was already on their website during our call but she insisted I just call her back after choosing a design. I complied because she sounded like she was rushing me off the phone and I thought maybe she was busy. So I call back just 10 MINUTES later with the design. And a new girl answers the phone and now tells me April 25 is FULLY BOOKED. I explained to her I called just 10 mins ago and it wasn't fully booked online and I was calling back because I have a cake design chosen and I previously spoke to someone already and she told me to call them back. To my surprise I see their calender has "suddenly" become updated showing April 25 was booked! I said to the girl on the phone, 10 mins ago April 25th wasn't fully booked, now it's suddenly FULLY booked?! And she replied with "yeah, they updated the calendar just 10 mins ago". 🙄 It was very disappointing and such poor service. VERY sneaky of them to just update their calendar after I've told them my date and THEY were the ones who told me to call them back, and now they won't take my cake order. 😒 Don't waste your time...

My review is based off of one item. A specialty 6' cake. I have not tried any of their other items on their menu. For the price ($50) 6 inch cake the cost does not match the quality. $30-$40 would have been a more fair price in the current Winnipeg bakery market. I do however like that the cake was not overly sweet, the favour was good as well but the texture of the cake was gummy as though it was under cooked or they used too much oil in the cake batter. I prefer a nice light and fluffy buttercream but found it was packed tight as if they are trying to get that fondant look with buttercream. I know that is the style that cakes are going right now but it just isn't working as far as the texture is concerned. Buttercream may not have been made with butter but possibly an all shortening "buttercream"? I can't quite tell, but it did have that oily mouth feel. One thing I did appreciate was the design and food colouring was done really well. There was no bitter taste from the black or red colours which can be an issue if bakeries use low quality ingredients. This was not an issue. Even though I was not wowed by this cake because of the cost to quality ratio I would try more of their menu items if I was in the area. The bakery was very busy when I picked up my cake so clearly they have a strong support system and people are buying something that tastes so good it is...