Sugar Mama's Bakeshop — Restaurant in Austin

Running a business is not just product, it's customer service and I have never been so disrespected as I was at Sugar Mama's.

I ordered a cake for my daughters 18th birthday with very direct specifications. I was down to the point as my daughter is very particular about the cake she likes as we recently moved to Austin and her favorite cake is back in Chicago. I first spoke to an employee over the phone where I described the cake which should have included custard and FRESH fruit. I was told that it's no problem they are able to make just what I want. I then followed up with an email once again describing my order, which I still have. I got the cake on the day of her birthday and when I cut into it I was shocked. It was nothing like I had asked for. There were no fruits, no custard, and the flavor was all wrong. Thinking that a mistake has been made I took the cake back to Sugar Mama's the next day to figure out what went wrong. Once I started speaking to an employee about my concerns which were immediately disregarded. I told her that the cake ruined part of the party and with attitude, she replied: "I doubt our cake ruined anything". They claimed to have made the perfect cake and saw nothing wrong with it as if they walk on some high ground and are the authority on what I like and asked for. When I mentioned that there are clearly no FRESH fruits they scoffed and told me they don't use fresh fruits. Taken aback I wondered why they even took my order or didn't think to mention over the phone or over email that they cannot give me what I am paying for. It's borderline fraudulent. I brought up the fact that as a business with morals and respect for their customer they should have mentioned that they do not use fresh fruit and asked me if a jam alternative was ok. Once again scoffing they said that they made the cake up to my standards and it doesn't matter if they use fresh fruit or a jam. DOESN'T MATTER! How can their customers order not matter? Irritated I demanded my money back and they claimed that it's the policy that they can only refund 50% of my total. How can any self-respecting business screw up so badly, not care to think about telling the customer that they don't have what they want, proceeded to take my money and then tell me I'm in the wrong and they don't care about refunding me the full amount?! To top it all off they finished off by emailing me telling me that I am banished from ever stepping foot in their store. I don't know who they think they are and who they think made them the authority on quality of baked goods and why they think they can ride their high horse but Sugar Mama's is a...

I used to go to this bake shop all the time when I lived in Austin before, and have continually raved about them ever since. However, apparently their standards for customer service have gone downhill.

I walked in with my husband and children to get a half dozen cupcakes (now over $20) because I wanted my kids to experience what I so fondly remembered.

We were not greeted as we walked in. A woman was picking up her cake order, and we waited our turn. As the woman prepared to leave and my kids were eagerly looking in the display, picking out their cupcakes, the customer in front of me decided that she wanted to add cupcakes to get order. The red haired girl at the counter told my kids to move out of the way so the other customer, who had already been standing at the counter for some time, could see the cupcakes. That was her first interaction with us. Then, as the other customer turned to leave with her cake, the girl at the counter told my husband and I that we needed to get the door for the other customer. I was holding my baby and my husband was with our other two children. My husband walked away from our children to open the door for this other customer, who was apparently more valuable than us. Then we went to order, and the girl at the counter told us they had a dozen special on day old cupcakes. I asked which flavors they had, and she took us to the boxes. My 5 year old couldn't see the cupcakes from the shelf the boxes were on, so I went to show her and was chastised for touching the box. We wound up just getting the half dozen we came for.

I still gave this place 3 stars because it was still a great tasting cupcake, but it was definitely tainted with some bitterness. From the beginning, I felt like my children and I were treated like a nuisance. I'm very torn about whether I would return or not. I know I won't be recommending them anymore, especially anyone...

I ordered a custom flamingo cake at this place. They sent me a link to a previous design they had made on their Instagram account, which I liked. I gave them almost 2 weeks to complete and they said that was more than enough time to have it completed. Before the order could be started I had to prepay for it ($145 for a 8in round) When I picked it up, they showed me the front of the cake from the back of the bakery (~10ft from the front of the store) I didn't see anything wrong at first and they attempted to box it up (being that it was a taller cake than what they normally do they threw a cake bottom box over the top and did not secure it with tape or anything. When I got to the event, after unboxing it is when I discovered the back of the top of the cake was not iced. The support dowel was exposed and even the top of the flamingo head wasn't iced! There was also an attempted repair at the top of the cake with a different shade of blue frosting. I emailed them and sent them photos expecting some sort of apology and a partial refund at least! I got a short response claiming that the cake was not incomplete and there was nothing wrong with it. I was too embarrassed to serve this for my Aunt's bday so I had to tell them that I had made it and run out of frosting! PS I am not a baker. For that price, I cannot believe this was done by a "professional". I can't imagine that any professional baker would have allowed exposed dowel on a cake and let their work exit the bakery like that! For this of you local to Austin, you're better to go to HEB and get a cake. To get more technical, there was barely any sponge. The cake was 80% icing. The chocolate ganache frosting turned into thick fudge and was inedible; barely anyone ate it! I'm not saying avoid this bakery. The stuff on the shelf looked good... I would just not get anything custom from them. God forbid if this was a...