Palermo Custom Cakes & Bakery — Restaurant in Little Ferry

UPDATE as of August 24 My mother who purchased this cake reached out to you, the owner/manager since you mentioned you wanted to discuss this further well it took you several days to respond to an email only to say that the pictures don’t indicate that the cake was inedible? My mother and I have told you how it tasted, my poor father who we got the birthday cake for said it was horrible. Also, that wasn’t the only complaint we had if you scroll down and read my review below and the emails my mother sent to you. The attitude in the response you sent to my mother through email (Totally different than the PUBLIC response to me about how sorry you were and wanted to discuss the situation and make me happy anyway you can, well then if you want to make me happy give my mother her refund and stop giving us a hard time) was an awful response… $45 for a dry, tasteless birthday cake with sloppy handwriting that was left in an open box that was too small for it! , this shows obviously no care to try to please extremely dissatisfied customers in the hopes of them maybe giving your place a second try or recommending your place to their friends or family members. If you decide to change your mind about refunding us the money we deserve back you can email my mother I know you have her email address in which she sent the same picture of the cake I left with my review.

My original review Ordered a birthday cake for my father from this place since our regular bakery was closed for vacation so I decided to try this place. Bad choice.

Had trouble getting into the one way parking lot since people were using it to exit. Only 2 handicapped spaces and the parking lot is located nowhere close to where the entrance is making it extremely difficult for my handicapped mother to walk to and then have to walk down and then back up the “slope”.

We asked to look at the cake which was shown to us where the cake was placed to where they had it placed up so high we couldn’t really see it and in an open box after we looked at the cake the workers walked away, I figured they were going to close the box but they didn’t and walked away when I picked the box up which was left taped in place OPEN because it was in a box too small for it and who knows how long it was left open like that in a refrigerator not properly covered… yuck! And the box wasn’t even put in a bag so I had to worry about dropping it.

I then get the cake home to look at it and the writing looked awful, it was sloppy, the color was running and the words were crooked as you can clearly see in the pic I took especially my father’s name! this was very upsetting. The cake was dry and tasteless ,was mostly the yellow cake and icing with very little what I don’t consider but what should have been cannoli filling and the icing has been falling off the sides of the cake since I got it. I was so upset and embarrassed to show this to my father and had NO time to get a replacement unfortunately. No wonder they wanted to be paid in full when the order was made.

If I didn’t have to rush home on an extremely hot day I definitely would’ve asked to see the cake closer before leaving but I wasn’t expecting to be further disappointed after getting the cake home even after the parking and open box situation.

Will never go here again and for obvious reasons don’t recommend. Now I need to get a replacement cake to make up for this one once my regular bakery reopens.

How you can give your customers a cake for someone’s birthday in this condition...

Update: After posting my reviews on several websites, I was contacted by two of the owners of Palermo’s, Joanne and Paul. I got to speak and work with Paul, who was much more sympathetic to the situation than Leann had been in the 5-week ordeal, and did everything in his power to make up for the mistake and keep me and my husband as returning Palermo’s customers. They offered to re-make the top tier of our cake and dine at their restaurant, which we are scheduling for this month. Paulie demonstrated great customer service skills - I wish it was him who had dealt with the complaint the first time around! Hopefully other brides will not have to deal with other employees from Palermo’s that treated us the way we were treated. The owners, however, showed a lot of pride in their bakery and a desire to make their customers happy.

Original review: Getting your cake through your wedding venue, but it's coming from Palermo's? BEWARE! This company has shown me they do not care about their 'wholesale customers' like us.

The instructions after our cake tasting (with Leigh Ann) were to bring our cake topper to the venue, no more than 5 inches wide. I spent over four hours making our cake topper by hand.

Palermo's delivered a cake that had a fully decorated top tier to my wedding venue, so my venue was unable to use the cake topper I had made. I didn't find out until the reception, so I was obviously very upset. Two days after the wedding, I reached out to Palermos.

After taking more than two weeks to get in touch, Leigh Ann claimed it was "an error by one of the decorators." Her recommendation for remediation, after speaking with her boss (Jerry, who is the owner, I believe), was a $100 gift certificate to Palermos. I requested a full refund for my cake. I acknowledged that we did not pay the bakery, but we did pay our venue thousands of dollars to have our wedding there, and the venue in turn paid Palermos for the cake. After consulting her bosses again, the only change was that we were offered the $100 as cash/check instead of a gift certificate. Leigh Ann told me she "thought that was pretty fair" and that her bosses said that because we were a wholesale customer (aka purchased through our venue) that there was nothing they could do.

Leigh Ann made sure to ask how the cake looked otherwise and how it tasted and requested a picture be sent to her. On the phone, she said "well, it looked great and tasted good." The cake did not come as we had ordered and requested it, so no, it did not look great. My wedding cake pictures are ruined, my hard work and time was wasted, and my confidence in this company has fallen. They have shown that just because we didn't place an order through the bakery ourselves, they have no care to fix their mistakes and take care of their customers.

In addition, I left my name/number with people who answered the phones in Ridgefield Park, and Leigh Ann didn't get my messages twice. Not sure who's at fault there, but obviously their communication amongst...

Beware of Pricing -- My fiancee and myself went to this bakery as part of a package deal similiar to one of the previously placed reviews and while the cakes on display were nice you could tell right off the bat that this place makes some money with the mohoghany displays and granite desks. It didn't take too long to realize how. Basically, my fiancee had a picture of the cake that she wanted and in discussing with the very helpful sale woman she stated this should be fine and probably would be an extra $150-200 for the design. We thought great this was a lot easier than I thought the experience would be. Well when she checked with the owner she came back and re-qouted us at $7-8 per head. For a 200 person wedding that is 1,400 -1,600 on a cake that we already have included with our venue! We balked at the pricing as we are paying for things ourselves with little support from our parents, she wound up going with her second choice which was still $500 extra but we didn't want to deal anymore and just paid in full. Just to note we are by no means cheap or frugal people and are having our wedding at a well known higher end place but when a bakery is asking $8 a head for a slice of cake in upgrades (not including the already paid for portion) they have lost their senses. I go to some of the best resturuants and eateries in the city for my work and they don't even have the nerve to do that. I feel that the cake boss shows and all the publicity has made the business of being a bakery a very lucrative one but once the hype is over there will be no loyal customer base to fall back on. Just beware of pricing, I hope everything works out with the...