Durango Bakery — Restaurant in Minneapolis

My daughter and I host a food review show on YouTube, so we were excited to try this nice little bakery for some fresh pastries and coffee on a Saturday morning. Nothing was labeled, but the young man behind the counter suggested a couple things and we decided to take about a half-dozen items home to try. Here are our takeaways on all the things we tasted:

Coffee-terrible. Should be free. Weak Folgers. Would not pay for. Churro-old, stale, spongy; could not even cut it with a steak knife. Not sweet. No cinnamon. Hard pass. Croissant-dry and chewy. No good. Sweet empanada-pretty good; not super-sweet (which we liked). Filling was good. Apple-filled thing (like I said, nothing is labeled)-good pastry, however the filling is canned, I believe Cream-filled thing-pretty good; I think the cream filling is house made. Their pastry crust is nice and flaky and tastes really good. Pineapple-filled croissant-style bread thing-really good. Filling is possibly house made and that bread is delicious. Cream-filled croissant-style bread thing with sugar dusting-super delicious! This was one of our winners. A really nice little not-too-sweet pastry that went great with our sad Folgers coffee. Concha (the only thing I actually know the name of)- OMG SO GOOD! Our number one favorite thing. Very light and just enough chewy breadiness. Very lightly sweet, and that sugar topping is dee-lish. Would buy again. Tres leches cake- so disappointing. The frosting must be made with shortening because the mouth feel is very distinctive to shortening. Blech. The frosting also did not have great flavor. Very lackluster. The cake is actually decent, but not awesome. The milk mixture at the bottom does not have a good flavor (I’ve had this cake before and it is one of my favorites). The whole cake together just fell flat on flavor for me.

I will return in the future, but I will keep in mind what the good stuff is and...

I had called twice to make sure this was the right place to order my food for my friend. I don’t speak Spanish but the person I spoke to spoke English so that was ok.

When I was ready to order the person who answered did not speak English well enough for me to talk to them. I thought they said they were getting someone who spoke English and they hung up. I called again and what I gathered is that they don’t want to preorder the tres leches slices and conchas because it wasn’t a big enough order. I tried calling a third time because I needed to preorder for several reasons. One because I needed these to be labeled pineapple allergy and another because I am not picking them up I needed to pay now.

I tried a translator app and spoke using the small Spanish skills I know. Looking back this was a bad idea. The person I had been talking to put the phone down and got someone else who started yelling at me. She asked if I spoke French or something which I don't I tried to speak to her in English but she didn't seem to understand me. I was trying to order and at the point, she yelled do you speak English while I was trying to order in English was the point I said that was all goodbye and hung up.

I cannot believe a company would treat customers this way. I understand that we were having language difficulties and perhaps if I had not had such a good experience with the other employee I would have given up sooner. Again, I know they were having language issues and I don’t mean to be culturally insensitive but if some of your customers are going to be speaking English I think they should be able to talk to them without hanging...

I highly recommend Durango Bakery for your events! This review is for LARGE ORDERS. I host events regularly through my job (almost every week) and have been ordering from Durango since 2018. I work with Germain (in English) to arrange large orders of pastries, but most recently, I ordered a full size Tres Leches sheet cake and two 12” Flan cakes. Not only was the sheet cake enormous, but it was also SO DELICIOUS and a very reasonable price. Having had many Tres Leches cakes before, I’ve tasted everything from super soggy to almost gritty textured cakes. This one was PERFECTION! Very moist, well-structured (so it didn’t fall apart when cut/served) and balanced in flavor. I am planning to order it again for my niece’s grad party! The Flan cakes were fantastic as well – silky, the right amount of sweetness, and looked wonderful after cutting/plating them.

For large orders of pastries, Germain will arrange whatever I want but I’ve learned with events to just pick a few flavors instead of having too many to choose from. The pastries are always fresh and I see many delighted faces when they are eaten. These are few of my past orders: 200 Churros: 100 filled with chocolate, 100 filled with cajeta 230 Conchas (choc, vanilla, strawberry) and 230 Empanadas (pineapple and apple) Smaller order: 30 Conchas (choc, vanilla, strawberry), 30 Empanadas (pineapple, apple, crème), 30 Cookies (m&m, choc) Latest order referenced above: Full Tres Leches Sheet cake, 2 x 12” Flan Cakes

Overall, I value the consistency of their high-quality products, and the personalized customer service I receive when I work with Germain and...