Charlie's Spic & Span Bakery & Café — Restaurant in Las Vegas

We now understand why the whole town of Las Vegas appears to have rolled-up sidewalks on Sunday mornings, the entire town is at Charlie's. We had a breakfast we weren't enthused by up in Colorado, and decided to try a stop in Las Vegas for some pastries or drinks.

A quick search before we reached the exits brought up Charlie's. When we found parking quickly, though the street and much of the lot across from the restaurant were packed. We were undecided about whether we should dine in or just order from the bakery to go. We opted for the latter, as the restaurant was seriously hopping, but the line at the bakery counter was pretty short, and it was a wonderful day for eating outside.

We ordered one of everything from the half of the bakery cabinet closer to the register, and the server chuckled, telling us that she hears that very often. We expressed understanding, looking at the delectable tarts and Cream Puffs, and assured her we were serious. She packed all the bars, tarts, and the Long John in one box, and gave a separate box for the Cream Puff because it was of astounding proportions.

We went to the plaza and tucked into the Cream Puff right away, and Wow! the pastry portions were light and flaky, and the cream was a departure from the traditional super-sweet pastry creme. It was pretty much the texture and flavor of the most perfect marshmallow fluff, only slightly less sticky and better at holding its shape. It's lucky there were two of us, neither of us could have finished that gargantuan dessert on our own!

We kept the rest of the pastries for the road, and broke into them when we arrived in Albuquerque. That's when we discovered than unlike every other doughnut shop or bakery we have ever encountered, Charlie's does not skimp on the custard filling. The Long John had been injected from both ends, and the creamy, custard center was a thick band all the way through the delightfully fluffy pastry. Total win, I'm not sure I will order custard-filled anything anywhere else now that I've had this one!

Our other selections included Apple, Peach, Cherry, and Prune tarts, and the Lemon and Key Lime bars. Every single one of these were of the finest quality, and big enough for 2-4 people to split as a standard dessert. I have been eating the tarts for breakfast for the last several days, and while they are absolutely the best when fresh, the flavor and texture holds up to refrigeration and reheating quite nicely. Most remarkable from the rest of these is the Prune tart, which has a crust that tastes like biscochitos, and the richest plum butter I've ever tasted inside. Also notable is the Key Lime bar, which has been getting steadily better each time I have some as a...

The Spic in Vegas

On this trip eating at the Spic was Not a positive experience. The gist of the negative experience is that I am hard-of-hearing. I walked in and put my name on the waiting list for a 20-minute wait. Perfect, my friends arrived to join me in 15-minutes. I checked the status of the wait, we were two away from getting seated. We waited another 15-minutes while several other groups were seated.

When we checked to see where we were on the list again, my name had been scratched off the list. I hadn’t heard my named called, neither had anyone else with our group. The young woman at the reception didn’t know how to deal with this difficult an issue so her very young advocate employee overseer stepped in. He flatly told me, “We have a policy of calling your name and if you don’t respond we scratch your name off”. I was standing 4-feet away from the reception stand for 30-minutes by now and they hadn’t noticed me waiting? So to penalize me for having me ask about the status of our table he told me he was going to put my name at the bottom of the list. The young lady denied that my name was ever on the list so I pointed it out to her, again. Our response to their “bottom of the list” was, well, we are hungry, want to be seated, first available. The penalty for that was another 15-minute wait.

Eventually we got a booth, ordered our food and enjoyed our morning company. The cooks did their job well, the server was pleasant and visited the table maybe 4-5 times, and the check-out went smoothly.

How can The Spic not have reception employees that don’t have the capacity to deal with a non-visible disability? If I was a mute, or missing an appendage, or blind, or spoke to them in Sign Language or Spanish, how would they have dealt with that? Hopefully not by being penalized by being first ignored, then told we were wrong, then made to wait, again.

We didn’t argue, or shout, or demonstrate anger. So it doesn’t seem like we provoked the response we received.

In my life I have been punished for speaking Spanish in school, not been served at a cafe for being one of “color”, and been looked down upon for not hearing. Well, I didn’t expect this in Las Vegas, NM, and certainly not at Charlie’s Spic and Span....

We were on vacation and checking out Google Maps for places to eat. The menu looked like it had something for everyone so we gave it a go.

When we got there at almost lunch on a Saturday there was a wait. We received a beeper. The wait, surprisingly was only 15 minutes.

Along with a huge diverse menu, they serve Starbucks coffee, fresh baked goods (donuts, small cheesecakes, and other delights) as well as bags of nice size fresh pressed and cooked tortillas. Some folks came in just for the coffee, baked good and tortillas.

Our waiter was Taylor (if the receipt is correct.) He was most helpful and answered all of our questions about the menu. Service here was prompt. We did have bit of trouble finding him for the bill but I think it was because that place was packed. Start (with wait time) to finish was just about an hour. Cash payment for the bill gave us a lower price than using a credit card.

We ordered a chicken fajita taco salad and a chicken/cheese burrito. The taco salad came with salsa which was too spicy for me so I skipped it. The salad had enough flavor. No skimping on the toppings. I would have to say this is one of the best fajita taco salads I have ever had and if we lived closer than 1,000 miles away I'd be in big trouble because I would eat here all the time.

My husband's burrito was tasty but a little too spicy for me.

We ordered what they call an eclair - it's basically a Long John with vanilla pudding on the inside and topped with chocolate frosting for $9. Some call it a Bismark (generally round) and the inside Bavarian cream. I did ask if the inside was homemade there. Yes, it is. We did not eat it there but waited until our hotel. We shared it. It was soft, delicious and that cream....yes I can tell it's homemade.

If we are ever in the area again I would stop here.

P.S. The atmosphere got a knock off because it is noisy and not many places to sit to wait...