MAKERS BAKERS Co. Bakery & More — Restaurant in Cincinnati

I love spending time in this market, in Cincinnati in general. It’s the closest thing you can get to a real proper “city experience” in Ohio.

My youngest son had raved about the confections at this stall. We stood in line for about 12-13 min and had the chance to see the cheery staff member (maybe owner because she referred to all their accolades personally in many of the conversations with patrons). Person after person she gave the same or similar very cheerful greeting followed by “have you had our food before?” Right as we were about to be up to order a young gentleman walked up. She looked at him and greeted him. He said “their next”. She looked at my son and I, who she had clearly made eye contact with during the prior multiple customer interactions. She looked at us stone faced , no affect “what can I get you”. “I have never been here before” I chimed. Completely devoid of smile she explained why they were world famous. She told us our total. She didn’t even finish the transaction before she was waiting on the next person and, yup. When she waited on him, it was full of joy.

My son literally said, “sorry, I’m not sure what was up with that.”

It was shocking.

Cincinnati has a problem and this exchange is emblematic of that problem. In a fierce moment of irony, we walked out of the market and found ourselves at a sign discussing “persecution of the German population”. Deeply, deeply ironic. We both chuckled.

If you own a business it’s important that you not allow race to colour your disposition. This was easily a 1 star experience, further irony, the only other time “black / white” disrespect was this on display was in the Deep South when my closest friend and I went in to a Mississippi gas station and the told us it was white only. We laughed and left. Then cried.

Perpetuating these feelings IN THIS CITY is a perpetual problem. It makes me sad. I was hurt. Not surprised. I won’t be back. The food wasn’t brilliant and the staff has a problem.

Let’s...

You guys. Rarely have I ever been both so excited, and bummed, to visit a business. Excited because the banana pudding and cheesecake are truly excellent, bummed because I live nearly 300 miles away and will almost certainly never come back.

Stopped in Cincy for a quick trip and ended up at Findlay Market. While walking around my wife overheard two guys talking about some banana pudding, and in a shocking reversal from her normal behavior, she interrupted and asked where we could find that banana pudding. Turns out we were talking to Kevin, the owner, and he pointed the way. We detoured to Rhinegeist before coming back and got there right as Kevin was running out of banana pudding. Like a true gentleman, he somehow came through with one last dish of banana pudding, and I grabbed a slice of cheesecake on the way out, too.

Seriously, one of the better banana puddings I've ever had. It's not your normal banana pudding as he uses a cake base rather than Nilla wafers, but I actually really liked that twist. The bourbon caramel drizzle took it up to the next level! The cheesecake was delightful, too! It had an unusually dark top that I felt brought some additional flavor to the party. Not even mad about it.

Kevin is doing some really wonderful things at Makers Bakers Co and if you're even remotely close to Findlay I would encourage you to drop by and...

Located in Finley Market, this small-time bake shop has big-time flavor. My family and i were there today for a sweet and savory event. We tried the little sample chicken pot pies they had. And they were divine. Out of everything we tried, these were the best. We had 12 tickets left over, and we cashed them all in for the chicken pot pies. These are hands down the best store bought pies I've ever tried. I never wanna eat marie calenders again. And the man behind the counter is amazing. He's so kind and humble. He wears a smile that lights up all of the market. He is a man who has truly found his passion, and he does it well. We ended up buying 2 more pot pies and a chess pie. The chess pie was like a dream. He described it as a mix of a sugar cookie and creme brulee. He was fortunately wrong as it was so much better. The flakey crust on both pies is perfectly flakey. The sweet and creamy chess pie is going to haunt my dreams until i get more.

I feel confident in saying this is the goto place in Cincinnati to...