Magnolia Bakery — Restaurant in Ocala

I made an order over the phone with Linda for a Cassata cake. We went over the order & she said it was $50. I go to p/u cake & was told by the pleasant lady in front that Linda said is was an extra $8 for almonds. I said she should have said that on the phone when she quoted me the price. She goes to the back & tells Linda. She comes back & tells me she said there was no more almonds. I said the Cake is not as I ordered if there's no almonds on it. She goes back to Linda, returns & said, she said is $8 if you want almonds. At this point to my confusion I asked, do you or do you not have almonds? This $8 is not an issue, she should have just said it, or admit she messed up. So then Linda comes from the back with an attitude telling me that if I want almonds I had to pay for them because they are not for free, she continues to say that they cost money & they're not for free, that I have to pay for them if I want them. I didn't expect her to be so nasty. All she should have done is say I apologize for her messing up & that was it. I got upset at her rudeness & responded that I didn't expect them to be for free & that she should have told me when I spoke to her, I said money is not the issue, I said I didn't expect anything for free.She just walked away. I don't appreciate that she is a liar too, sending that poor lady to lie for her about not having almonds, doing her dirty work. I should have walked away, but the cake was unfortunately expected. She really upset me in how she spoke rudely to me, treated me as if my business was nothing to her, as if I was less of a person than her. After she saw I was upset, She mellowed down & decided to take cake to my car. As she walked to car she gave the excused that she was driving when she took my order that day, another lie because she put me on hold to take care of a customer while I was listening on the phone. LISTEN LINDA, this has nothing to do with the extra $8, It has everything to do with how you treat certain people. The rudeness of this lady towards me was so disgusting, & disrespectful that it was so sad to tell my friends who recommended the place of my horrific experience. They are repeated customer who now opted to go to Betty's place for now on. Betty's place has wonderful customer service. I want to believe she is just a nasty person who has past her customer service time, because she was so rude & nasty to her employee, the lady was so nice, that lady doesn't deserve to be treated like less of a person either. She didn't want her to talk to me & did not care to express her rudeness to her in my presence. Shame on you Linda, you are a horrible person. People don't realize that when they treat you poorly, they never know next time they see you they might need from you. So always be kind. Today is her Birthday. I pray G-d can grant you peace in your rotten heart & give you a new attitude towards all people. I bet you didn't think my english is just as good...

Where to begin?! The 2 hour wait in line with no apology whatsoever. The birthday cake they forgot to make but tried to play it off like I ordered a cake decorated with Christmas stuff? The dirty disheveled place that stunk really bad? I came in there and ordered a birthday cake in person. A few days later when I went to pick it up, there were about 7 people in line in front of me. No big deal right? WRONG! First the lady in line in front of me turned around and said she’d already been in line an hour and that the same customer had been at the counter the entire time. They had lost his order! Well what do you know, that seemed to be the theme! Every single customer she couldn’t find their stuff. She’s working the counter ALONE on a Friday, 3 days before Christmas. Not once does she say to the people in line that she’s sorry about the wait. Arrogance at its finest! Do you really think your stuff is that valuable? Not even close! So I was stuck because it was my husbands birthday that day! After almost 2 hours in line and a lot of people behind me walking out, I finally get my turn. She brings out some cake with a snowman on it?? I said, no mine is supposed to be a Birthday cake with blah blah blah written on it. She mumbles that this one had my name on it and wanders to the back to supposedly look for my cake. Meanwhile an older lady walks out to take over the line. Like where was she before?? Every time you’d see her in the back she was just wandering around aimlessly. So I said to this new lady that I really have to go now, I will just take that snowman cake at this point! Because I have to have a cake! She mumbles something blowing me off. Well after 15 MORE MINUTES the other lady comes back with a cake that seriously looked like a 5 year old made it. Come to find out by looking at it, she took that snowman cake and doctored it up to be mine. UNREAL. I took the pos, and I was embarrassed to bring it home. I refused to eat any as I was disgusted at how filthy the place was. Well my husband and daughter ate it and got sick! Both had sore stomach’s! Check this cake out! She placed some nasty wrapped chocolate inside one of the green wreaths that the cake had to cover up things as best she could. Look how the writing starts off blue too. Like wow just WOW! My daughter was in town visiting so she was with me, and we were both flabbergasted at the...

Food was average - except for the rolls, they were delicious - however service was terrible. I sent this email to them, will no response back - and still waiting. I had to contact my bank and challenge a charge for an item (as listed in the email) that was not received. Since no response, I have to option but to post this review on various social media platforms.

Here's the email:

Apologies for the delay in writing this. I've been traveling and I also wanted to get information from guests that attended my mom's surprise 80th birthday party that you "catered" at the Saddleoak club.

There are a number of failures on your part that I'd like to point out...

You were an hour late delivering the food... If I catered your event and was an hour late you wouldn't be happy either. We ordered three sausage and pepper plates but only two were delivered. You would know this had you come in after my group unloaded your vehicle and placed the food on the table... But instead you just left... You didn't even carry anything inside. I'm glad we spoke beforehand and I ordered more food because if 75 guests had come there would not have been enough food. As it is, 55 guests arrived and there was barely enough food... The only items left were some of the cakes and sliders... And know that the majority of the guests were over 75 years of age so they don't eat much. The $25 fruit bowl appeared to be canned fruit that you dumped into a bowl and added a few fresh sliced items. Two guests pointed out and showed me a hair in their vanilla cake. Guests complained that the sliders appeared to have a tablespoon of egg salad or tuna salad or chicken salad and a small piece of lettuce. Everyone loved the rolls.

Please take this as constructive criticism and ideally you'll learn from this.

Based on my experience and the guests that attended, we probably wouldn't recommend Magnolia bakery...that saddens me... A few of the guests recommended your bakery to me... That's how...