McLain's Bakery — Restaurant in Kansas City

Recently purchased a gender reveal cake from here. Worst experience ever. Did my research finding the best place to have my gender reveal cake made and decided on McLain’s because of reviews and recommendations from others. Once at the bakery I personally gave my gender results sealed in an envelope. Staff assured that they made gender reveal cakes all the time and knew how to read results. Was able to personalize my cake and left the bakery excited. Following week my sister picked up cake, was asked if she wanted the envelope back with the results, which I’m glad she said yes. Day of reveal is here and my husband and I cut into it in front of family. We see the cake and see pink and show everyone. We were all so excited. I decide to look at results to confirm gender and come to find out the results said “male.” The moment completely ruined. That following Monday I call the bakery and ask to speak to a manager to tell her about this instance. Jenny proceeds to apologize and state this has “never” happened before. I tell her I am just as shocked and offer a photo of the cake to prove the occurrence, at first she tells me she believes me and no need for photo, ending the call with her accepting the photo. This is why I am writing this review, her response to the photo was shocking. She begins by stating she will refund my money but proceeds to tell me that based off the photo she can tell the filling was a blueberry buttercream (boy) and that this type of buttercream made the color naturally more purple and could see how this could cause some confusion. That once that buttercream is mixed it looks lighter. Absolutely not. This cake was pink and they took no accountability for their mistake by trying to explain how my eyes confused the color that was on the cake or that it was my responsibility to assume purple meant boy. You are telling me the person making this cake did not once believe that the filling could appear confusing to the customer and maybe go ahead and add some food coloring to avoid confusion or call the customer and state that for better results a different filling may be needed?? Overall disappointed how this situation was handled by the manager. Will not be purchasing or recommending from this bakery.

She did state they would no longer offer flavors for gender...

Nice neighborhood bakery. I don't think any of the pastries we have had there have been anything exceptional, but it's a nice place to walk to on a weekend morning and enjoy a coffee. I would rate the food as probably a 3-3.5, it's good but averagely so.

I ultimately gave them a 3* review because of a cake we had made there. My wife very graciously got me a cake from mclain's for my 30th birthday. It was, by no exaggeration, perhaps one of the worst cakes I have ever had. For one, it was a small-ish cake, and yet they didn't even put it in a box that fit. They handed it to my wife with the top of the box not able to close by about a solid inch, so naturally, the cake went stale in a day or two despite us trying to wrap it up. For a $35 cake.. c'mon! Find a box that fits. Not only that, but the cake itself was just not very enjoyable. Red velvet cake, but most of the frosting was some strange anemic frosting with no flavor. Only the top of the cake had frosting that was made of cream cheese, which seems like a strange choice. The cake was also kind of dry and overall flavorless. I felt bad for my wife because she tried to make it special, but we truthfully would have enjoyed a boxed cake mix for $3 more than this. We still go back here, but I would never order a cake...

I ordered a custom cake for a birthday over the weekend & when I picked up my cake, it wasn’t what I expected. I ordered the mod cake & chose the pastel option that was pictured, so I thought it would look similar to the picture when I picked it up. I was wrong. The cake didn’t have a single color that was the same as the pastel picture. The cake was decorated in hot pink, light pink, and a bright blue (not even pastel colors). I took it back to the car, compared it to the option/picture I chose & brought it back into the store. I expressed my concerns and disappointment and let them know that it wasn’t anything like I thought I’d be getting and how the cake reminded me of a gender reveal cake. I was told that a cake decorator was going to add more color to it to resemble the picture. The only thing that changed was that she put a bright coral over the light pink color. If this was a $20 cake, I probably wouldn’t be as disappointed, but I spent $50 on a cake that didn’t look anything like what I requested & there was a picture on the website that the decorator could have compared to. The cake itself was delicious, which is why I...