Artisan Bake Shop — Restaurant in Rochester

I reached out wanting to purchase cakes for my wedding. I asked to schedule a tasting, and was informed that they didn’t have any delivery options for the day of my wedding. I expressed that as we’re doing a fairly simple wedding, we don’t need a tiered cake, so we would be happy to pick up the cakes ourselves or coordinate a pickup through our caterer. They responded that that would absolutely be okay. The bakery then told us they still won’t schedule a tasting for us because apparently tastings are for “full service” weddings only. I informed them that I was planning to spend quite a lot on these cakes and would really like to try them first to choose a flavor combination that we’ll be happy with; I even offered to pay for the tasting. They told us we could buy their cupcakes if we wanted to, but would not be given a tasting.

In full disclosure, we had asked whether it might be possible to do a ceremony cake and then their signature cakes, and were told yes. We had not finally decided whether to order signature cakes versus “wedding” cake (as the only difference we could find on their website is that wedding cake is eligible for delivery, and has more complex decoration — we were planning to pick up, and we’re planning to just go with plain frosting with no decoration, so whatever their standard decoration is was no deterrent) and wanted to get clarification about any other differences between the two. We were told that we are very welcome to do signature cakes with a ceremonial cake. This was not cited as a reason for not being permitted a tasting.

We were expecting to spend approximately $1,000 — we wanted gourmet upgrades on flavor and filling, and expect nearly 200 guests. I’m not sure why they would be willing to do a tasting for someone providing only the classic flavors for 60 guests and having the cake delivered, but not to someone doing all the available upgrades for 200 guests. Their tone after I requested a tasting felt dismissive and curt, which was very disappointing given how excited I was by their flavor options and reviews. My impression is that they cut corners on customer service unless they identify you as a big spender — and $1,000 just wasn’t a big enough profit to be...

Booked Merideth for our wedding almost 2 yrs ago. I went to pick up a cake for our sons bday on May 27th. When I pulled out her driveway it was obvious there was something in or on my tires. My car was shaking and driving horribly. When I got home I checked my tires and saw that there was driveway crack sealant stuck all over my two front tires. My fiancé drove by the bake shop when he got home to make sure it came from her driveway before he called her to address it. It was in fact from her driveway. He called and left a message and she never called back. The next day we get a call from her insurance company saying that she had filed a claim. We thought it was strange that she never called us back but figured she was just taking care of it and that would be the end. Nope! I get an email from her a few days later saying that she will be canceling for our wedding and refunding our money by mail “so we don’t have to come on her property again due to the stress that this claim has caused her and her business.” Uhm..... I’m so confused! We never filed a claim, she did. We didn’t damage our brand new car tires, her property did but yet we were treated as though we did something wrong and was at fault. Merideth has proven that she’s immature and not able to properly handle any issues that may arise as it may cause her too much stress. Sorry, but don’t be a business owner if you can’t handle stress or people for that matter. If your looking for a dependable, responsible and mature baker, look elsewhere because Merideth and the Artisan Bake shop is not. Just thankful she did us the favor of canceling for our wedding as it’s an important day and I need someone I can depend on to handle the job even if something...

As soon as we picked up the wedding cake tasting kit from Artisan, we knew we'd have to go with them for our wedding. Every sample bite of cake and frosting made it harder to decide what combination we wanted -- they're ALL delicious and you can't go wrong! We ended up choosing a champagne cake with raspberry filling, and Meredith really impressed us with all her different design concepts inspired by our wedding color palette and aesthetics. The result was a cake that everyone loved -- one friend who's a huge dessert fanatic called it the best wedding cake he'd ever tasted, and we agree! Our only regret from the wedding day is not being able to eat more of it, but as a lovely final touch, Meredith gave us the option of freezing a piece or a gift card for her to make us a new piece the next time we visit town. We can't wait to have it again!

UPDATE: We went back to New England for the first time since our wedding to throw an engagement party for my husband's cousin, so of course our first call was to Artisan for the cake! We wanted something fun and book themed (the couple met while working at a library), and Artisan did NOT disappoint, delivering a beautiful cake that had edible book spines and even a custom fondant library card! While we were there, we also got our anniversary cake (cheating, since our anniversary isn't for a couple of months, but we won't be back til next year!) and got to relive the magic of our wedding day. There's no better baker than Artisan, and we're going to have to start coming up with new excuses to go out there and get their...