The Sparrow Bakery PDX — Restaurant in Portland

If I could post a zero I would. The pastries at Sparrow are good, however the snarky staff made for a very unpleasant experience and I'll not return. The obviously from Kansas flyover land turned living the dream Portland hipster corrected my pronunciation of "scone" , I guess they've never heard the English pretentious way to say it. Lol. I was told also they only have the one scone in the display case. The display scone. I'm meant to know this presumably without asking. They don't have the various types of croissants listed on the menu, this was on a Sunday at noon and they are already out of everything except plain ones , which would've been fine excepting the counter persons attitude about it, rolling her eyes and annoyed with me for not knowing they are obviously out of everything.

Get two plain croissants, and two drip coffees. The half and half is almost empty, there are a few drops on the bottom of the container. I asked politely could I get some more, and was told "I just refilled that, there is plenty." I turned the container up and poured the few drops into one of the coffees, looked over and was met with a blank stare over their drywall respirator. I said, you guys are pretty rude and I'll not be returning. They said flatly "sorry you feel that way." Lol This is not Soho, or Paris, or a Vienna cafe. The over the top try-hard wanna be cultured attitude of places like this gets old. You literally have a meth camper across the street. Get over yourself you are...

I've been meaning to try thePDX Sparrow since my initiation to the Bend location in October. I was blown away by the goodness and wondered if Portland could measure up. I was going to go after i got my covid shot Sunday, but i called and they were sold out of what i wanted. I promptly pulled up Grubhub since i have a free year, and ordered two pistachio croissants, two ocean rolls (of course) and two shortbread cookies to be delivered the next day. I was going to spring for a box of shortbread cookies, but it doesn't show up on the Grubhub order menu for some reason. So, I can tell you that the answer to my question is hell yes! Portland's ocean rolls and croissants are at least as good as Bend's! Sadly, no shortbread graced my bag, but there were three of each roll instead. If I weren't such a shortbread ho, that would be a complete win, because they really are amazing, but I love it, and in my thus far limited experience, theirs is reallyreally f'ing good. Like, magical. I guess I'll just have to trek up to St John's someday and bring home the prize. In the meantime, I have to beat the old man to the extra pastry. The pistachio cream in those lovely croissants is luscious, and the ocean rolls are their own art...

I want to like Sparrow. I do. The first time I went in, the ocean roll I got was delicious. Then I found a paperclip in it, fully baked into the dough. How? Why? No idea. But the coffee was good, and I figured any business can have an off day and hygiene is never gonna be 100%, so I went back a few months later. While I was waiting for my coffee and pastry, I watched an employee dump butter into a giant mixer with his hands, then dig around in his jeans pocket for a few seconds and pull out his phone, then check stuff on his phone, and then—without washing or even rinsing his hands—go straight back to dumping butter, with bare hands on the sticky butter, into the mixer. The phone germs would get baked to death, I guess, but those PLUS pocket lint was a bridge too far for me. Won't be back.

And I don't order pastries at other cafes that use them as a supplier (which is more around town than you'd think).

It's a shame, because the place is excellent otherwise. The coffee, service, and vibes...