Carina's Bakery — Restaurant in Beaverton

Oh man, I really wanted to like this place... I found this place and looked up the website. Intrigued by the backstory, the concept and the menu and wanting support a local business I went over. Getting there, the exterior is clean and modern. Inside the decor is charming and bright with little odes to the owner's heritage. I was greeted by two employees and I greeted them, and mentioned I hadn't been before and might need a second... I ultimately ordered a variety of things for myself and a friend I was heading over to meet. A smorga, a blueberry maple danish, a cinnamon roll, a sausage roll, an almond milk mocha, and a malted milkshake. The mocha was requested first and was made first while I asked what kind of "sausage" was used in the rolls, and was told kidney beans. Sounded interesting enough so I ordered that. The coffee and pastries were given to me after I ordered a malted milkshake. The woman who made the coffee then went back to make the smorga while the cashier ran my card. I asked what the flavors of the ice cream were for the milkshake as they weren't offered and the cashier said "ummm, well I don't think there are any." "Your ice cream doesn't have any flavors?" I asked, very confused. "No, ummmm, I don't... um no, there's not" she said... But there were colors pictures of ice cream sandwiches and such on the sign advertising the items. I mentioned this, bringing up the different colors between the cookies and asked why. She said she guessed there must be different flavors but she was vision impaired so she didn't know.... I told her that was completely fine but that doesn't mean she should be unaware of the products she's selling. Continuing to fumble over her words she agreed saying that was a good point and said she would go ask what the flavors were. She was told and relayed the maybe four or five flavors back to me and then said "sorry, yea, I knew about the Vanilla and the Hulva but not the others" okay... well even saying that would have been better than " no, there isn't any flavor".... I chose chocolate, and by then the Smorga came out and the other woman started the shake. So as a timeline, I got there at 9:05, had receipt, coffee and pastries in hand by 9:08 (as per the timestamp). Smorga maybe a minute or two later. Cool. When the shake finally came out, the cup was only between 2/3 and 3/4 full. I asked where the rest of it was she said they didn't have the right cups so that's why it looks under filled... I had to point out that the sign states it's a 20oz shake for $8 and this is a 20 oz. cup so... after seeing the sign she said "oops, you're right and I'll go make some more..." and left again. She came back out a few minutes later to grab the cup left behind and went back, and eventually came out with the shake. At this time I asked for the sausage roll. In response, she sighed at the cashier saying "you didn't tell me about the sausage roll and we don't have any, you need to give her a refund". The cashier clearly didn't know how to do that and the other woman said to "just give her the cash and we'll write a ticket". And the cashier handed me the money. And I went on my way. That was 9:29... so it took nearly 15 minutes to make the shake correctly... The coffee had very little chocolate syrup and way more foam than a mocha should. It was just okay. The Danish, I was really excited about this and so dissatisfied. The bread was dry, and the texture was not light and delicate at it should be but tough like the dough was over worked. And stale! It definitely was not fresh, one of the blueberries had just a spot of mold. The cinnamon roll, also so very stale. The bread completely lacked in flavor and was also very tough. The flavoring on the bread was nice but not strong enough to mask the stale flavor. The Carrot lox Smorga, apart from the sweet that is natural the seasoning was bland. The paste under wasn't bad but the tarragon was a bit much. The bread was very crumbly and doubtfully fresh.

So bummed by the service, lack of own product knowledge/inventory, and...

By FAR THEE WORST PLACE TO CHOOSE TO MAKE A CAKE!!!! CARINA made thee WORST CAKE for our daughter's graduation. I sent a picture asking if they can design a cake similar to the picture or better and Carina said she could! I even spoke to her. I told her I didnt care about pricing but to just make the cake BEAUTIFUL even if they were going to charge me $500, I would have paid it. The day of pick up, it was my worst nightmare!, they did NOTHING I requested except for the sloppy graduation cap with a missing tassel, they spelt my daughter's name wrong and corrected it the day of but now there's big spacing in the name because their mistake. There was NO DECORATION AT ALL ON THE CAKE EXCEPT FOR ICING SQUIGGLES!!!!. DECORATION AND WRITING LOOKED LIKE MY 8 YEAR SON DID IT! I ordered a 2 tiered cake AND THE 2ND TIER WASNT EVEN CENTERED. They charged me the base price of $100 and then after they showed me the cake, they still tried to charge me another $100 because "a lot of effort" was put into the cake, THE FRIGGEN NERVE!!! So I kindly put Carina in her place because I was not going to pay another cent on this disgusting cake. THEN TO MAKE THINGS WORSE, WHEN WE CUT INTO THIS HORRIBLE CAKE IT WASNT EVEN THE RED VELVET FLAVOR I REQUESTED!!!! IT WAS SOME KIND OF DRIED CHOCOLATE BROWNIE!!!!. IT WAS SO HORRIBLE IN TASTE AND NONE OF OUR GUESTS WANTED TO TRY IT. KIDS GAGGED AND SO DID I!!!!. I'm known my family to host and have the nicest, all out, parties with the best food and desserts and this cake was just so HORRIBLE AND EMBARRASSING. DO NOT ORDER YOUR CAKE FROM HERE, SAVE YOUR MONEY AND GO SOMEWHERE PROFESSIONAL!!! I WAS BETTER OFF BUYING A CAKE FROM WALMART. CARINA'S BAKERY IN BEAVERTON IS THEE WORST PLACE EVER AND THEY'RE REALLY NERVY AND GREEDY TO TRY AND CHARGE ME $100 MORE THEN THE $100 I PAID ALREADY. IF YOU'RE DESPERATE DON'T EVEN GO HERE, GO TO COSTCO, WALMART, OR MAKE IT YOURSELF!!!. I WILL UPLOAD ALL MY PICTURES OF THE CAKE THEY MADE. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A TWO TIER GRADUATION CAKE BUT INSTEAD IT WILL LOOK LIKE A TWO TIER CAKE DESIGNED AND MADE BY...

I placed an order online for the day before thanksgiving. I placed my order at least 24 hours in advanced. With that being said when I showed up to pick up my order I was told "it would be 5 more minutes." That isn't really a big deal, but I was left there waiting at least 15 minutes. That really wouldn't be a big deal, but I was on a time crunch that day. That is my fault but I was a little annoyed since I placed my order in advanced and I tipped over $10 when I paid for my order online. The staff wasn't rude at all I just felt like I wasn't that important.

As far as how the pies tasted... I paid the prices I did for 2 holiday pies because of the convenience of not having to make my own gluten free pies. With that being said I think I am just going to make the attempt in the future. I got the Pumpkin Meringue and Marion Berry pie. The fillings in both were both good in themselves, but the pie crust was not. Both the crust and the cookies on the Marion Berry pie were super hard. The pressure need to slice the crust was cutting into the pie pan itself. That being said we just ate the filling of the slices we were able to get out and just scrapped the rest of the pies.

On a positive note when visiting they did have an awesome assortment of Gluten Free goodies ready to buy. I did buy a few things myself. The apple cider doughnut was really good. The brownies have a nice texture and good taste! If you're looking for something quick that you can judge with your eyes then I recommend this place.

Overall though I just wasn't totally pleased with my experience with this Bakery. I was willing to let it go with having to wait for the pies, but it was let down how they ended up turning out. I love the idea of this place, but will probably defer in the future for...