Prato Bakery — Restaurant in Jersey City

Wanted to note the staff specially Adriana Ceballos makes this places feel special, wanted to make a note of this since she is always so kind!

This place instantly transports me back to Prato, Florence. It captures the essence of authentic Italian culture with its relaxed, spacious layout—no crowding, just room to breathe. Italian radio plays all day straight from Italy, and by noon, hearing the DJ say “Buona Sera” is a charming reminder that it’s already evening on the other side of the world.

It’s a self-serve setup with a beautifully long and open layout. The pastries are delicious—fresh and unprocessed—but keep in mind they can harden by the end of the day, so they’re best enjoyed right away.

Among all the other charming locations, Bay St is...

Love/hate relationship with this place. The staff barely understand English (always) and they have no idea of customer service. Many items need salt and pepper (ie: tomato on foccaia - no salt... zucchini on foccacia... no salt... both of these result in kind of soggy bread with zero flavor). Salt and pepper live behind the counter - why not have a pepper grinder and a salt shaker avaialble w/ napkins? They have a "build your own sandwich" option - I'm mostly vegetarian so I chose mushrooms, tomatoes and 2 cheeses and the sandwich price they quoted me was $20.03.... what?? $2.70 for a handful of canned mushrooms on a sandwich - no way. So, stick to the cantucci and the meat options which are value and...

We came in for the first time on a Sunday afternoon; food and drinks are very good and I would go back. As everyone else had pointed out though, only one person working which does not make for good service (even if the one person is excellent). That means one person is taking orders, then pausing to go prep food and drinks, so it takes a very long time to take orders and the line just accumulates. The place is big enough and there’s enough foot traffic to have another person working. There are much smaller places with at least two people. Also cleaning up tables and chairs is a bit non-existent from what we saw, since one person barely has time do...