Rise Authentic Baking Co. — Restaurant in Grand Rapids

Rise Authentic was a 5 star experience for me. 🌠 Mother's birthday was coming up in less than a week and I was in a frantic late night search to see what local bakery could make a cake in time. Little did I know, most bakeries need a 2+ week lead time. Scrub mistake and planning on my part. 🤪 I reached out to 6 different bakeries and only this one could Rise to the occasion (but really it was luck, give your baker time y'all).

Rise was advertising on their Instagram at the time that they could do it with much shorter notice (4-5 business days; of course this might change due to order volume and how booked they might be, YMMV). I filled out their online form that night and waited anxiously for their response. Called in the morning just to check in on it. No problem they said. They can make the cake in time. Huge relief. Communication with the owner through email was great.

They followed my request perfectly. Stunning cake. Lavender lemon 🍋 buttercream and flavor with blueberry compote. Less sweet requested. When I first cut into the cake I was nervous as it looked dry (nature of a vegan cake?) but no, this cake was moist, delicious and beautifully fragrant!!! 🥵

It's not everyday or in many places where you can get a LAVENDER flavored cake. Everyone in the family loved it, even the waiters at the restaurant (I shared a couple slices) only to find out they were sharing bites with the team in the kitchen. I gave them more. 😊 But they all commented on how great it smelled even before eating it. No piece will go to waste. 😋

Rise made this cake look beautiful even though it wasn't a wedding cake request. They were able to accommodate by adding beautiful design with fresh fruit on top. While my family is not vegan at all, they never suspected that this was made without animal products. Truly impressive. I will use Rise Authentic for all my future cake needs. Could eat this lavender lemon cake all day and my family and relatives are hard to impress! Even my grandma finished her slice! 🍰🍽️ Amazing cake, amazing flavor. Please never stop making this. 🥵🍰

P.S. this cake didn't need a cake topper but I added one just for the photo op my mom wanted. 😂 Gotta know it's for a birthday. 🥳 Also the cake/icing dent in the restaurant pics wasn't Rise's fault. Probably during transportation or at the restaurant between being stored in their fridge and...

I have been going to Rise for a few months and I have had a mix of good and bad experiences. First of all, some of the staff is great and personable. Others are rude and don’t make you feel welcome. If you find something you like, beware because there is no consistency when it comes to the pastries. I have had good pastries and others that were flat out raw or over cooked. I have been sold scones that were mislabeled as one flavor and were something else entirely. When it’s brought to the owner Nick’s attention he has a way of exasperatingly making it seem like it’s my fault and gives a half hearted apology. He cares more about his profit margin than keeping a customer happy and he certainly does not like owning up to his mistakes. He is perfectly fine selling inconsistent pastries to people who don’t complain because they are just happy to say they are eating a “vegan, gluten free, soy free” pastry. My family has spent a lot of money at Rise and we have given them many opportunities to fix their mistakes. Nick gives off the impression that he does not want our business when we are there all because of the fact that we have pointed out valid problems with SOME of the baked goods. Who wants to eat a RAW scone? They sell day and two day old scones and cookies at full price and do not let you know they are not fresh unless you ask. I get the impression it annoys Nick when asked. All this has encouraged me to just bake my own vegan pastries. I hate to say that Nick makes Mr. Krabs from Spongebob seem like someone who really cares about his customers. Instead of fixing problems and owning up to mistakes, he and some of his staff would rather make that extra money off someone who won’t complain about a raw or over cooked pastry and will just let it go. You will not be a valued customer if you complain about anything. They just want your money. It’s such a shame! I really wanted to support this local bakery but I think my business is better...

I ordered my wedding cake from Rise after the many good times I’ve had from visiting the bakery and was extremely disappointed. We scheduled a cake tasting to try the cake and mentioned that we wanted a dusty blue cake with simple decor. The baker who did our cake tasting showed us a picture of what she was thinking for simple decor and we said that we liked that and would go with what she showed us.

We also had it in writing that we wanted simple decor. What we got was a frosted dusty blue cake with zero decor. We had family pick it up since we are over an hour away from the bakery so we did not see it until they brought it to us the evening before our rehearsal. We did not have time to drive over an hour away to have them add anything to it as we had wedding festivities the next day. We were very saddened by the lack of any decoration on it and because it was not what was discussed previously.

I reached out to the bakery after our wedding to express our concerns and received a not so friendly response that what they did make was simple decoration. If this is simple decoration, I would have gone elsewhere. They also brought up many things I could have done like drive back to have them fix it. But as stated above, this was just not possible with our wedding schedule. This was our wedding cake and I wanted it to look like a wedding cake, not a plain, frosted, naked cake. I’m super sad to experience this as I want these small businesses to do well because there are not many that offer so many options for people who need to eat gluten free. Also, just accepting that a mistake was made also goes a long way. I felt like I was made to be in the wrong and did not feel that the customer service was kind. Hopefully, they won’t do this to anyone else’s...