Calandra's Bakery — Restaurant in Newark

On Saturday, I ordered a cake in the morning around 9 AM and asked if they could make me a cake. They said yes and I ordered a chocolate bread, custard, and fresh Strawberries. The lady on the phone sounded like it was not possible so I said I could pick it up at 4PM and she said 5PM is better, thats fine. I picked up the cake and later that night we start cutting into the cake and the cake turned out to be basic vanilla cake. None of the kids in my family like vanilla so they were pretty disappointed, so was the birthday girl since she specifically asked for chocolate.

I called the bakery the next day and let them know that they messed up the cake, and the lady on the phone said that I could come in and they would resolve my issue. I stopped by the bakery and the lady we spoke to in person said there was nothing they could do without proof. So we showed them the receipt of the purchase of the cake and photos before it was cut into and during the cutting. I’m sure one of the guests have a video of the birthday girl confused as she finds out the cake is not chocolate. What more proof does she want???

My family and I have been buying from this bakery for more than 5+ years and recently we have been experiencing worse service. A few years ago we ordered a cake for a catholic confirmation after party, and I asked for flowers as decoration on the cake and it came out to be one white, big, ugly box looking cake. Extremely embarrassing when unboxing the cake in front of all the guests. Last year around April I also ordered a cake and I asked for fresh strawberries in the cake and I got that strawberry jelly filling. We don’t like the taste of the jelly filling which is why we always ask for fresh strawberries. But we decided to let it go because we had only experienced a few bad encounters with this bakery before.

My family and I might just stop buying cakes from this bakery because something is always going wrong. We did tell the guests about every bad encounter with the cakes and they always give us the information to those bakeries that they buy from. We might just buy from them instead if the horrible service continues. Truly...

I purchased a birthday cake for my mother's 80th birthday party. The cake was a 10 inch cake with strawberry filling with whip cream/buttercream with whip cream topping. Of course, the cake looked very pretty as all of Calndra's cakes does; however, once I bit into it I was very dissaponted.

Being that it was a birthday gathering, everyone did get a piece of cake. However, on the following day, I contacted the bakery to inform the manager of my disgust. A young lady picked up the phone attempted to transfer my phone cal and ironically the call was disconnected.

I called back and spoke to a Carlos. He was very apologetic and insisted upon me bringing the cake back to the bakery. Ofcourse a good 75% portion of the cake was gone, but I wanted him to see what I saw.

He took the cake to the back and came back out with a game face stating, "he did not see anything wrong with the cake."

I could not believe that he did not see that the cake was very dry. When you cut the cake, it falls into pieces. He insisted upon me taking any pastry in the bakery to compensate for my bad experience. I explained to him that nohingt would be able to compensate for the symbol that would have represented my mother's 80th lifetime milestone, not even money!

I was already disappointed about the product, but then once I returned with a portion of the cake, at Carlos request, I became even more disappointed because I could not understand, with Carlos years of experience, and expertise could not honestly admit to the poor presentation of the cake. Not to mention the mockery and the snickering I experience by the ladies behind the counter as I was discussing my horrible experience.

Out of all the 35, if not 40 years that I did business with Calandra's, I have never experienced anything such as this. The service was always excellent and the customer service was to the highest level of expertise. Not this time. This has left a very poor taste in my mouth, I am terribly...

The service was absolutely awful.

For the past 10 years I’ve been getting my mother her favorite cookie, the pignoli cookie, for every holiday and once a month. I went in today to get them a day early for Mother’s Day. I spent a little over $120 in total, but spent $50 specifically on just her favorite cookies. When I brought them home we each had a cookie and said they tasted a little hard/stale. Definitely didn’t taste as good as usual. I called the bakery and the girl said I can come in and talk to the manager.

When I got there the manager was beyond rude, started yelling saying “if your mother didn’t like them just say so” and then proceeded to go back and forth between “I pulled them out myself this morning” then said “I pulled them out myself last night.” I tried to tell him that it didn’t matter when they got pulled out, I buy them all the time and they just didn’t taste right. He then yelled again “if she didn’t like them just say so! What do you want then!” I asked for a refund and the girl gave it to me. The yelling was completely unnecessary. I’ve worked in the customer service industry my whole life and this is not how you speak to a customer.

The return policy on the receipt states that I can get a refund or store credit within 48 hours, it had only been about two hours. So I don’t understand what was the point of the tantrum that this man threw. There was no need for me to be yelled in front of a full bakery, under any circumstance. I went in to just have a conversation and to get a fresh batch, but instead left beyond disrespected. This long time customer will no longer be back. I usually rave about how much I love this bakery, but definitely won’t be anymore. Sadly I will not be returning or...