Russell's Cafe & Bakery — Restaurant in Missouri

Pros: -It's sparkling clean and SMELLS SO good!! -Excellent variety of lunch food selections. -Nice service. You order and sit and the food is delivered. Ours came promptly and with a smile. -My salad (pear, blue cheese, spinach with balsamic vinaigrette) was excellent. I am an absolute bitc... er ... bear about clean salad greens and this salad was delicious. -My friend and I sat and ate our lunch at a leisurely pace and talked for almost two hours and everyone who came to the table had a smile without any hint that we were in the way.

Cons: I recommended Russell's in Fenton to my friend because I love Russell's on Macklind and my favorite sandwich is their Cuban. Sadly, in Fenton, it was so disappointingly NOT a "Cuban." A Cuban needs to be squished on a toasted baguette or panini, which is what you get on Macklind. A Cuban is not served on toasted, sliced white bread. It is also not served with thick dill slices out of a jar. It didn't taste bad but it was a very disappointing Cuban.

Overall I'll go back but please, guys, call the chef on Macklind and ask how to do a Cuban (and I'm hoping to find the chicken lemon soup on the menu on a future...

I had a craving for a piece of gooey butter cake and knew that Russell's is always highly rated for it. I live in Fenton so decided to stop by the Fenton location. There was 1 lone piece of gooey butter cake sitting there in the open air display case which irks me being open air anyway. Isnt that just a recipe for a stale dessert, being exposed out in the air, probably all day since I stopped in at about 4pm.. Anyway, the girl said she had more in the back if I wanted more than 1 slice but made no effort to offer me anything fresher than that 1 little lone piece if I only wanted the 1 piece. I guess I should have asked. Customer service is certainly out the window and COVID hasn't helped that worsening problem with businesses. The piece was $5 give or take some change to start with, so that's ridiculous. As I expected it was stale, and worst of all, it had a pie type flour crust. Maybe that's normal for the crust to be dry and crumbly and taste like flour, but that's not like any gooey butter cake I've had before anywhere else.Totally disappointed and would give 0 stars if I could.Hopefully my husband likes and will eat it, or I guess I just...

Love the sandwiches.

However, our family’s once annual birthday cake, big split lemon, was eaten to the last crumb and helped to allay the $ 55 sticker shock.

For two years the cake -and even a huge layer cake taken to a bridal shower, did not disappoint. Fast forward 2 years. The cake was handed over with no box, no bag. Just the cake. Even that would have been worked around but it did not come close to the cake we were used to. Hardly the bright lemon taste we love. Dry, scanty icing. A total bust. Foolishly we didn’t stop there and gave it a try next year. This time we got it in a box but the disappointment was same. Most was discarded.

This time I called and asked to speak to baker. After three tries I realized this was not going to happen. So I spoke to whomever was answering phones and said I wanted to ask the baker if the recipe for the split lemon cake had changed.

I wrote her reply.

“Well, there is more than one baker. They use their own recipe. There is no telling if they come out the same,”

No more Russell’s split lemon cake for our annual celebration. Twice burned; third learned. What...