Bliss Gluten Free Bakery And Café — Restaurant in Holland

I'm going to start by stating the very obvious fact for anyone who has worked with gluten free products....it's hard to perfect. Unfortunately, Bliss hasn't perfected theirs in my opinion and I spent $100 there to find out. Here are my thoughts and review.

My wife has an autoimmune issue that requires she avoid gluten and sugar. We had received a gift card from a friend who highly praised Bliss for having GF options locally. We are huge supporters of the local shops. We had been invited to a dinner with friends who are also GF and we decided to try their products and bring to the party. The bakery is easy to locate, even in the busy downtown Holland district. Unfortunately, the most abundant parking is around the back on 4th street, but this is not handicap accessible. You must go around the building to the front if you need wheelchair access. My wife doesn't need wc access, but cannot manage stairs well. So we had parked in the adjacent building lot and walked into the front of the building. This was fine, but on a weekday when their neighbor is open may pose a problem. The bakery is bright and cheery and surprisingly to us, busy! Their menu is not just deserts, but they have a great looking brunch menu, coffee and tea services with a selection of milk and alternative milks. Unfortunately, no Oat Milk. The staff were very friendly and helpful, but I had to coax out the information in order to get the answers I had hoped they would provide. I personally think that they could use some customer service training on how to demonstrate their products and up sell items. A simple question of "Have you ever been here before?" would easily set the pace for the folks behind the counter on where to start with our purchase wants/needs. Instead we stared at the bakery cases, pointed and asked questions, stared at the large menu on the wall trying to decipher etc. Being our first time, we were a little overwhelmed and luckily, nobody behind us to pressure us even more to make decisions. So if they ask the questions as we arrive, it may help to move the line so to speak.

I had peeked online at their website first to determine what we'd like to bring to our party and was hoping for the Christmas Cake, but they only have those available with advanced notice. So we opted for a dozen cupcakes and my wife also selected a chocolate chip cookie duo. Easily $100! (I'll remind you though that ingredients like almond flour, coconut flour, psyllium flour and Xanthan Gum are pricey to begin with, but this was aggressively pricey in my opinion.) The cupcakes we purchased were in groups of three so that we could sample each kind at the party. Strawberry, Samoa, Chocolate Peanut Butter and Raspberry were the selections we chose, we opted out of the almond as we figured it was too plain for a party. I will say, they are stunning to look at! Excellent presentation, including the packaging! The frostings were sweet but not too sweet and plenty of flavor. The group all said the strawberry cupcake tasted like Frankenberry cereal? I don't eat cereal so I wasn't sure how to compare, but almost artificial? I know they don't use artificial flavors (I hope) but it wasn't for me. The cupcakes were all pretty dry, which was a major disappointment! I had high hopes for a $9 cupcake, if not for me but for my wife. They had an almost cornbread like texture (which is OK as I like cornbread) but definitely needed either more fat/oil or eggs to make them more moist. Since we purchased more than what was available in the counter, they brought out frozen cupcakes for us and put four in a box. No bags were offered and this proved to be a challenge in getting three boxes to the car while assisting my wife. (Please add bags when you send someone out with a box or more of your goodies.) We left the goodies in the car for the duration of the day to thaw out before our party and they were completely thawed by the time we were ready for them. So frozen isn't a bad option if you're worried about them not being...

This place is awesome! I don't usually go out of my way to write reviews unless a place/service is over the top. This place fits the bill in the best way. The staff are so very kind, patient and informative. They answered my many questions with grace, and were very engaging. The food - awesome! I am a vegetarian that has recently went sugar free keto and I missed out on so many things for a while there. I did a Google search and found them and they were so close, yet I didn't know they were there.

This place has a great amount of sugar free desserts, and there were many takes on all of my favorites. I have not been disappointed by anything we have had there and we have tried a lot! The prices may seem high to some, but as someone who bakes with the same ingredients when I (rarely) have the time, I can tell you the material costs to make these healthy specialty treats is higher than white flour and cane sugar. Their prices are exactly in line with making only a small profit from the delicious things they make. This establishment must be a labor of love, and I'm here for it.

Thanks to them I can have my keto/sugar free muffins, cakes (German Chocolate for my birthday), whoopee pies, coffee cakes, cheesecake, poundcake, dream bars - you name it. I'm not gluten free but much of the aforementioned is, and they have a lot of GF options including breads. Definitely...

We’ve visited Bliss Gluten Free Bakery & Cafe a couple times now, and we’re overall very happy with our experiences.

The service has been friendly, welcoming, and helpful. The food has been good, a few of our favorites being the soft pretzels, the peanut m&m sugar cookie, and the double chocolate cake.

Having a gluten allergy, I love having an entire bakery of items to choose from that I don’t have to worry about containing gluten. We also are huge fans of the multitude of keto options; we don’t even follow the keto diet, but to have options available that won’t spike our blood sugar AND still taste great AND are gluten free is a home run for us.

One of the main complaints we saw when searching the past reviews was the expensive prices. And while we wouldn’t visit here weekly, we think it is still worth an occasional visit, especially for those hard-to-find gluten free items that those of us with gluten allergies generally don’t get to enjoy. That said, if you aren’t gluten free or keto, you may not find the...