Bar Harbor Cheesecake Company — Restaurant in Saint Augustine

I wish I could give Bar Harbor Cheesecake all the stars in the world. Let’s start at the beginning: my partner and I were wandering the Old City, making our way from the Fountain of Youth to the Distillery, when the nicest older gentleman asked us “do you two like cheesecake?” we stopped for a moment, because we love cheesecake, I mean, who doesn’t!? But we were already rushing to get to the Distillery before they closed, so we couldn't stop. The rest of the walk, my love couldn’t stop thinking about the cheesecake place, and the nice man out front. He hoped they were doing well, as a sweet little place in this difficult year. Hours later, I mean, hours, later, he was still thinking about this cheesecake, and again the next morning as we were setting off for a breakfast sunrise picnic - so, we decided to look at the menu. My boyfriend is allergic to nuts, so we very much appreciated the menu being so clearly marked for nut-free desserts. And there were still SO many we could choose from! Then…we saw that they do cheesecake flights, and it was decided. We were going back that night, getting cheesecake to go & doing a cheesecake & wine picnic at the fort.

Luckily, when we arrived that evening, we were told flights couldn’t be taken to go, and we had to sit in. What a sweet, sweet experience it was! We were able to chat with the older man out front for a bit, and tell him that his sweet demeanor made us want to come back, and then we were called in and taken to the Lovers Room, overlooking the Lovers Tree and cemetery.

Again, I can not overstate what a sweet experience this was. We were so excited from the moment we stepped in, (hell, we were excited since we decided to go). Taryn took care of us, and she was a doll. Her laughter was infectious, she was so sweet and we could tell she loved being there. The three of us laughed and carried on all evening. Eric also came over a couple times to make sure everything was perfect, he took some lovely pictures of us with our 3(!) flights of cheesecake, and was all around the nicest person. We LOVED it here. Absolutely loved it. The cheesecake was amazing, the wine flights were amazing, the atmosphere was amazing, all around 20/10 experience. Everyone seemed amused by our methodologies eating & ranking the flights (Eric even asked if we were mathematicians - and my boyfriend is LOL). We took our #1 cheesecake to go, intending to have a picnic by the fort later that night, but ended up saving it for our drive to the airport the next morning.

I know everyone says “I don’t usually leave reviews”, but I truly never leave reviews, and as we left Bar Harbor Cheesecake Company, I told my boyfriend that I wanted to leave a glowing review, because besides our quality time together, our experience here was one of the top highlights of our trip. In fact, as we were driving to the airport, we were planning another trip back to St Augustine in a month & a half (a whole lot sooner than we would’ve otherwise planned), just so we can go back for cheesecake. There’s a Jewish holiday in May with cheesecake/dairy being the traditional food, and we hope to be back in St Augustine that weekend so we can get Bar Harbor Cheesecake before our shabbat, and again before our holiday. We can’t wait to come back here, it was truly the best experience, and the cheesecake was out of this world divine. THANK YOU! THANK...

Let me preface my review with the 2 positives first: the wait staff were very friendly and the building was pretty. Now onto the not so great. Firstly the woman that took our reservation was very rude to one of the members in our party both prior to our seating and during our seating after the same member of our party stepped out of the restaurant for a moment and was approached again after attempting to reenter the building. Secondly the cheesecake my group and I had wasn't cold which unfortunately impacted the texture leaving it soggy. One of the cheesecakes I ordered was the bewitched blackberry and it had a weird artificial grape flavor--very unpleasant. The other two flavors (key lime and blueberry-lemon) I had were just "fine"--not terrible, but not good. Thirdly and possibly the most frustrating thing was that they were out of or simply didn't offer so many things. It kind of felt like we were playing Russian roulette with the menu in hopes that they might have something. I don't know if we just happened to pick the worst night to come in or what, but you would think that at 6:30 pm on Friday that they wouldn't be sold out of what seemed like half of their menu. Also maybe this is just me being an entitled American, but I find it very strange that a restaurant specializing in dessert doesn't offer coffee of any kind. I'm not seeing you need to provide an espresso bar or anything, but just offering basic drip and decaf should suffice. When my group offered some feedback at the end of our experience it was not warmly received, so I don't know if this review will be viewed differently. If I could make a recommendation to the team, it would be this:

1. Perhaps the menu would be more manageable if only a handful of options at a time and more emphasis was placed on trying to perfect the quality of those offerings.
2. Do away with the $9 per person fee reservation system. I can understand if there has been a history of last minute cancellations or no shows, but at that point just request a credit/debit number and charge a $20 fee if a party fails to show up. However if a party walks up the front counter asking for a table there shouldn't be a need for that since the party is already there awaiting seating.
3. Customer service is key. All of the issues with the food could've been forgiven if the team there had demonstrated a willingness to try to improve the overall experience next time once we communicated that there were legitimate problems rather than...

This place was recommended to us by some locals and I'm disappointed to say the least.

To start, the $9 a person "registration fee". Though it is a bit strange, I do like that it goes towards your "meal" as it makes it feel less expensive because your end bill has the top taken off. But this poses an issue for the staff, as I'm sure so many don't factor this into their tip. I wouldn't say it is THAT strange, I'm sure they have a valid reasoning for this, and maybe just to guarantee you even do the sampler minimum. The issue I had was this, I was strongly considering the sampler, and had I known that any cheesecake options were out of stock... I may have moved on. That part felt those most...scummy. Granted, you cannot list everything that is available or not from the start, but to force you into paying $9 for items to be out of stock really felt like a bait and switch. The cheese cake, I wasn't brave enough to try the savory, but from what I gathered it was more like a quiche type of food. The cheesecake I had was strawberry. Now, what I will say is this place takes flavors LITERAL. The cheesecake was infused with the strawberry flavor and had strawberry chunks (gray ones) inside it. It was a very tart and bitter flavor that I was not a huge fan of. I will say, try the sampler if you are a picky eater. The service was actually really nice. Our server was friendly, and the woman who signed us in was lovely as well. They really are the ones carrying this place from getting 1 star. The atmosphere was cozy, I loved the house look with the darker interior lighting. People complained about having to wait, but even though it was just us and we had to wait 20 minutes, you figure they are squeezing you into cancellations if you just walk in, so they don't want to overwhelm themselves. This is a very fair procedure and I don't view it as a negative.

Overall, the cheesecake is very subpar, mushy, and tastes soggy. Wouldn't go again nor would I recommend any flavors that we had. The experience itself was cute and if you're just wanting to kill some time and try some mediocre cheesecake that you'll know you'll never ever want to try again and appreciate your grocery store cheesecake when you get back home, definitely...