Tiffany's Bakery — Restaurant in Philadelphia

Want to see a 5 year old's ultimate disappointment? Want to work with customer service who cannot resolve an issue and an owner who thinks calling you back can wait 2 days? Tiffany's is your place.

I ordered a cake on Tuesday, for delivery Friday between 6 and 7pm. It was a specific design that my son had been asking for.

Well, cake arrives at 6:20pm. Delivery guy doesn't even ask me to sign the form to show acceptance (I've ordered cakes from here before and normally you have to sign a sheet). He hands me the cake and runs. As I bring the cake into the kitchen, I realize why...the cake has a HUGE crack down the middle...straight through the character design. The cake is lopsided and looks simply awful.

Here's the timeline of events after receiving the cake (note, party is on Sunday morning): At 6:25pm I send Tiffany's an email with a picture of the damaged cake. At 7:28pm, I get a response from Tiffany's saying that they apologize and will get back to me ASAP with a resolution.

Saturday: 10am - I call Tiffany's to find out what they are going to do to resolve the situation. I am told that "Angela" is managing it and won't be in until 11am, and that she’ll call me as soon as she arrives.

11:30am – I haven’t heard back. I call again. Am told Angela won’t get in until 12pm.

12:50pm – I haven’t heard back. I call again. Am told Angela won’t get in until 1pm. While I’m on the phone, Angela walks in and gets on the phone. Says she hasn’t checked her store email yet so doesn’t know what happened with the decorator / baker. I say I’ll wait until she can check it. She puts me on hold for 5 minutes. Comes back and says, “Sorry, it’s probably a buttercream issue. Our decorators have left for the day and won’t be back until Monday. The best I can do is send you a pre-made cake, but it won’t have a design.” I tell her it’s not an acceptable response (btw, I paid $100 for this cake and the delivery) and am not sure why she didn’t ask the decorator to make a new cake on Friday night when she saw my picture. She kept saying “that’s not what we do, we have to find out what went wrong”. I ask over and over, “what help is that? What I need is a cake I can use, I don’t need to worry about what went wrong”. She says she’ll send me an email with “all the ways we will resolve this situation”. I ask for a refund as I need to go buy a new cake.

I spend 2 hours going from bakery to bakery trying to find someone who can make and decorate a cake in time for my son’s birthday. Finally find one, pay a premium for the “rush”.

3pm – I send an email formally requesting my refund.

4pm – I call to see why my refund hasn’t been issued. Am told that only “Frank, the owner” can process a refund over 50%. I ask to speak to Frank. Person I’m talking to calls Frank and Frank says he can’t talk until Monday. Apparently, this situation doesn’t warrant a phone call from the ONLY PERSON IN THE WHOLE COMPANY who can even somewhat resolve a situation.

While I’m on the phone, Angela sends an email saying they will process an refund for 50%. I email back explaining that the cake is unusable and I had to go buy a new one. I need a refund for 100%.

This whole experience has been so incredibly frustrating. I will NEVER EVER EVER buy a cake from Tiffany’s again and I will be letting everyone I know about this situation. I get that mistakes happen, but you absolutely MUST HAVE a way to resolve issues, and you MUST have people who are either empowered or can reach someone who is. If you have a special event and you charge a bakery with the most important food element of that event, you have to be able to TRUST them. Tiffany’s has broken that trust for me. I hope this review is helpful so that others don’t have to experience such stress and disappointment.

I will update this review based on Frank’s response, if he ever calls me and if I ever get an...

I placed the order. In my opinion your team needs to work on operations management. If you see the trail email - your team has no control on how orders are taken within the system. The amount you expect to be debited or paid by the client doesn’t show up and work on the links you provide.

Pls go through the trail email. I have repeatedly been asking for details before placing order.

I write this email as I reached Tiffany and was somehow able to place the order for the yellow cake - I wonder after so much email communication your team doesn’t have a system in place to attend to client and the client get to choose the cake informed before hand . Your team scrambles taking orders over email.

I reached and post the lady taking my order . And asking me to pay ISD 20 for last min which I don’t understand how was it last min when you can read the emails.

I reached Tiffany at 6- finished the preset by 0639 and my phone died. This is after a 30 hour flight to US from India where we reached today afternoon at 4 pm.

My phone died. Thankfully the lady at counter helped in charging phone however my phone never charged - I couldn’t book a Uber back home- my husband panicked and was in mind to call 911 to trace me

and I walked home by 0730.

Does the bday cake now make any sense to your team?

It doesn’t to us.your operational failure is so visible in this . This email is not for the manager or the person in charge- you’ll just cannot operate after 15 emails and a panic button from husband for I didn’t return home within the time I promised and I stayed unreachable .

Also your number on website don’t work. I tried calling...

CONGATS FROM TIFFANY'S!

Absolutely do NOT recommend this bakery — the sheer disorganization and complete lack of customer service turned what should have been a special moment into a stressful, disappointing mess.

Let me give some context: I pre-ordered a custom cake for a college graduation, a once-in-a-lifetime event. I even paid extra to have a specific logo included on the cake. Leading up to the week of pickup, I called multiple times to confirm the design details — no one ever returned my calls until two days before the pickup date. Red flag.

When I arrived to pick up the cake — in pouring rain, no less — not only was the design completely wrong, but there was also a glaring misspelling in the word "Congrats". Yes, they managed to butcher even the most basic part of a celebratory cake.

To make matters worse, the manager casually told me that if I wanted the cake fixed, I would have to drive it myself to a completely different location where the baker was. I even offered to wait or have it delivered later to my hotel, since the party wasn’t until dinner. They refused. Zero accountability.

The end result? A cake that said “CONGATS” — and it became a running joke at the graduation celebration. How embarrassing.

Bottom line: this bakery couldn't even execute something basic, let alone custom. If you care at all about your event, do yourself a favor and go somewhere else — anywhere else. The time, money, and emotional stress just...