Cake Bar - The Cafe — Restaurant in City of Syracuse

I REALLY wanted to like this place. It was my daughter's birthday and she wanted bubble tea and fancy cupcakes.

First, despite this coming up on multiple searches for cupcakes in Syracuse, they do not serve cupcakes. They do, however, serve cake slices and boba, so we were fine with that.

The inside is cute and nicely done. The outside is terrible. I know they can't control construction, but there is zero parking available. We had to drive around the block several times to find anything on the 4 surrounding streets. It's downtown Syracuse, so it's whatever, but I think people should know there's no parking.

The tea and lemonade were fine, the taste was pretty normal, nothing spectacular, the presentation with the dried fruit and mint leaf was cute. The tapioca boba was really awful, but the mango was good.

The real issue is the cake. When I tell you that I have never in my 38 years of life experienced such a dry cake, I am not exaggerating. I've had everything from homemade to gourmet to grocery store to little Debbie and this was the worst. The apple spice cake was filled with canned apple pie filling, okay, fine. It was covered on top in jarred caramel sauce, pretty basic but decent. The frosting was completely tasteless. It wasn't just under sweetened (which some people prefer), it literally tasted like nothing but vegetable shortening, not even butter... And I'm not even sure I should say taste, bc shortening is pretty flavor neutral. It had the mouth feel of lightly whipped shortening and nothing els.

The biggest issue by far was the cake itself. It would not even scoop onto a spoon without literally falling off in crumbs like barely damp sand. Even the whipped shortening and jarred caramel and canned pie filling could not save it. I have no idea if it was because it was presliced, or if it had just been sitting out too long or what, but charging $6-8 per slice for this quality of baked good while calling yourself The CAKE Bar is humiliating. Imagine you made a boxed spice cake but forgot the oil and then sliced it and left it sitting out for 4-5 days exposed to air. That would be more moist than this cake was.

We paid $45 for 3 slices of cake, a brownie, and 2 drinks. That's roughly $7+ per item for what ended up being less than mediocre. So...

Based on so many positive reviews, I was excited to try out some of their desserts with an eye towards placing a large order for an upcoming event. I purchased a few different items from a very friendly cashier to get a feel for what this place is about, and the only word I can use is "uneven". The individual flourless chocolate torte was cute and built as one would hope, with a texture befitting the recipe. The flavor was a bit bland, but the ganache topping was very good. The cake however...I had my doubts when I saw that individual slices of all the cakes had already been cut and the sides stuck with a plastic lining; I assume this was to aid in serving customers quickly. However, this led to my slice being extremely dry on both sides, while the bottom part of the slice was soggy and leaky, as if a sugar syrup had been added to the cake to help to retain moisture but just sank to the bottom instead. The vanilla buttercream was fine, as was the chocolate chip cookie. Nothing to write home about, but serviceable. Again, I really went in with high hopes given the spectacular reviews, but charging 8.50 for a piece of cake that was both too exposed to the air and also soggy was a real bummer. Perhaps if this area of upstate NY lacked quality bakeries, this could be forgiven, but there are so many around here that do consistently excellent high quality work, it's hard to justify the price and the experience as one I'd like to repeat. Perhaps it was just an off day? I plan on returning in the future and hopefully have a different experience before I write them off all together, but not...

I’m addicted to Cake Bar’s Chai Milk Tea. I don’t care how many calories it has; it’s an addiction and I don’t want to stop. I prefer it without the boba, but apparently this makes me a bit of an oddity as my friends can’t seem to order without them. This location offers a range of sweet desserts in addition to savory pastries.

I don’t typically order cheesecake from restaurants or bakeries because they usually taste store bought and tawdry. Cake Bar’s cheesecakes, however, taste anything but store bought. All of the desserts I’ve sampled have that “made from scratch” quality.

They also have a sampling of savory options, such as their crab Rangoon pastry, chicken pot pie, and the ham and cheese pastry to name a few. Their pastries are genuinely flaky and I’ve never disappointed.

Another thing I can say for Cake Bar is that they’re open until 10 PM, which is a huge plus in a city where most places shut down around 8. It’s nice to be able to swing by Cake Bar after a later dinner or drinks with friends and have the option to enjoy something sweet while sipping coffee.

If you haven’t tried Cake Bar yet I’d strongly encourage you to...