Sweetly Baked — Restaurant in Salem

Let me start by saying the owner is extremely kind & the food tastes delicious! That said, I spent nearly $500 on a cake and 12 dozen cupcakes from Sweetly Baked, and unfortunately, my experience from start to finish was disappointing at best.

I placed and paid for my order three weeks in advance, yet a week before pickup, when I called to confirm, the staff couldn’t locate any record of it. After being placed on hold several times, the owner acknowledged remembering me placing the order in person, but still couldn’t find it in their system.

She was kind and offered to take the order again over the phone, but since I didn’t recall every detail, I made time to come into the shop. Once there, I waited 15 minutes to be helped—by less-than-friendly staff—and had to confirm my entire order again. Once confirmed, I was asked to pay & had to reminded them I had already paid.

Before leaving, I tried to purchase two cookies and (perhaps naively) expected some gesture of goodwill considering I had to leave work to fix their mistake. Instead, I was told they couldn't comp the cookies because a supervisor wasn’t present. I understood the policy, but the lack of empathy was disappointing.

On the day of pickup, we were scheduled for 7 a.m. The cupcakes were ready, but the cake was not. The frosting had fallen off part of it, and the top border piping I requested was missing. The staff attempted to “fix” it on the spot, adding too much frosting—so it no longer looked like the crumb coat/semi-naked cake I’d ordered—and added additional piping designs I hadn’t asked for to the top. The result looked rushed and sloppy.

The absolute cherry on top though, was the fact that they didn’t have a proper box to transport the cake. A single tiered, 3 layered, 6” round cake, and they didn’t have a box that fit.. The employees solution was to tape parchment paper to the top of a small box and “hope the lid doesn’t fall”(I’m almost certain that this is the same employee who took my original order too). Thankfully, another employee had the sense to recommend tapping two boxes together for a sturdier option.

Thankfully I was able to fix some of the blemishes, remove the border & piping we didn’t ask for, and picked up some floral greenery to hide what I couldn’t fix.

While the owner was kind during our phone call, the overall lack of organization, professionalism, and accountability from the staff left a bad taste in my mouth—unlike the cupcakes, which were delicious but not...

This is typically not something I do unless it's a positive review for a local business but I think it's very justified this time. I have ordered cakes and bought cupcakes before from this bakery and about a week ago, I placed an order for my sister's 30th birthday and pregnancy announcement cake for the following weekend. We went into the store and placed the order but the baker was not there. The lady at the counter took the order and I was told to call later and when I did, they said the baker was still not there. Called to follow up the next day and was told "your order is in the queue, the baker is back on thursday and she will call you to ask any other questions if she has any." I asked if I should pay over the phone and was told I could pay when I picked up. I never received a call or voicemail so I figured all was good and the cake would be ready saturday for pick up. Saturday morning, I called to ask what time I could pick up as I had forgotten and was told "you never answered our call so we thought you ended up ordering from somewhere else" and they hadn't made my cake. I know for a fact I didn't miss a call because I had no missed calls or voicemails. I had to go buy a generic cake and was so disappointed since the family loves the cakes there. Unfortunately will be looking for another local bakery as this place let me down and ruined my special surprise...

Little to no response from this company; I wanted to order a graduation cake and spoke on the phone with an employee, who got my info and said they would be able to get me a cake by the date I needed it. She did mention to me that they wouldn’t be able to do the heart shape I wanted, but it was OK, I was excited to get the cake anyways as I’ve never done a custom cake.

When it came to explaining design, she said “texting was better” and to send reference pictures and they would get back to me about pricing and deposits. No problem. I texted over my info and reference pictures, and checked back in after a week of not hearing anything back and they assured me they got the info, that they DO in fact make heart shaped cakes… and then never got me an estimate or deposit information.

After almost another week and an approaching grad party, I asked AGAIN if the cake would be getting made (as I had not gotten any information on a deposit or pricing) and didn’t get a response for another couple days… the day before the grad party. I was let down by the lack of communication by this point and got a cake from somewhere else. This company should respect people’s...