Calumet Bakery — Restaurant in Thornton Township

I ordered a cake in advance and asked the very helpful young lady if I could pay in full before pick up on 9/9 at 10am she said it would be fine because I’m giving notice. I went to pay on Wednesday and it was busy as per the usual, so I came back on Friday morning to pay for an easy pick up Saturday. The young lady states that there was no deposit paid so it wouldn’t be ready until after 3pm on Saturday as they make all cakes the day of which as a person who knows baking making a cake the day of is not feasible when it has a fruit filling and buttercream icing. It takes awhile for the cake to cook and cool, plus you have a multitude of cakes to make the same day it’s not smart. Anyway I speak with the manager a thin young white male with an attitude stated the policy and I stated my frustration as when ordering you ask for a phone number and an email address for contact, no one made a courtesy call that I needed to pay either the deposit or the full price on Wednesday (which I did come but their process is so chaotic for ordering and just making cake payments is ridiculous). The manager was rude and smart mouthed by stating we are too busy for that like the people who come and pay for pastries and cakes aren’t. Any other business has someone who makes courtesy calls to make sure the patron still wants to keep their order or remind them of the payment and even if they don’t call an email or text is sent out. Their process is a headache and the management needs training on professionalism as I cancelled because of his attitude, a tasty cake made by u professional staff isn’t the way to continue to make money. Another patron stated he was rude and they screwed her up for her cake order that day!!!! The owner needs to get the manager in order for real and adopt a better process for cake orders along with the system upon walk-in as tickets are not good enough. Someone needs to be at both registers one for cake orders/payments only and the other for pastries, the orders should be taken by a ordering specialist and that order should be given to the cashier when ready to pay it makes ordering much smoother with less congestion at the counter. More focus goes on the customers and less people standing around, also it will cut standing time as COVID is...

I ordered a cake MORE THAN TWO WEEKS IN ADVANCE. Ordering, pay and pick up was efficient.....I looked at the cake at pick up and it looked great, BUT that is where the customer service ended. I got to the birthday party and the cake had NO filling. I ordered half strawberry and half pineapple filling, there was literally no filling, just two layers of cake. Like how??? I immediately reached out (with copies of my order receipt and pics a picture of the cake) via their website contact sheet on Saturday (the day of the party); I knew they were closed on Sunday, so I expected to hear back on Monday...Since I had not heard back, I reached out on Tuesday, just to be placed on hold for 20 minutes. When someone finally got back to the phone, I was told they could not confirm that the cake had no filling with the two pictures I sent them. I explained that their website contact sheet only allowed me to upload two pics, but I took several at the party and emailed them from my personal email account.

I asked to speak with a manager and she told me that I would have to bring the cake in. The manager was curt, rude and was adamant that there was nothing she could do. I made it clear to her that if she did not rectify the problem, she would have a bigger financial problem than the cost of the cake. No one spends money on these expensive cakes for the bakery to mess up and refuse to stand behind their product. Mind you, 1. they have no policy in store or in the website stating a return policy 2. We are still in a pandemic so you want me to bring a cake back in store, even though your verbal policy is not stated in writing? 3.I made it clear I was asking for a full refund; a store credit or reimbursement for what THEY messed up would have sufficed.

Ten minutes later the "manager" calls back and tells me she sees where they messed up and will reimburse me, to which I  replied, "put your policy in writing and post it." Terrible experience.

Look at the pics and tell me if...

I never write reviews but I was so upset I wanted to share my experience. I am extremely disappointed in the service at this location. I signed up for a wedding here and was excited to get 2 cakes for my family to try. I ordered a white cake with white chocolate mousse filling and buttercream frosting and chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling and frosting. I picked the cake up, brought it for my family to try, and the chocolate mouse in the chocolate tasted spoiled and like they didn’t clean a bowl between baking items. My family said it tasted like Asiago or blue cheese (weird!). The white cake also didn’t taste like buttercream frosting or mousse filling, plus the filling in the mousses were different but they claim that’s normal. When I inquired via email, they said that the bakers taste test the mousse that day and said it was what I ordered. I brought the cakes back and I spoke to a wonderful woman Monday morning in person (she’s the only reason I’m giving more than 1 star). She was empathetic and said that the owner or manager would call me and get this fixed… no one called…. I called Wednesday and someone who was also nice picked up the phone and after 15 minutes of waiting, confirmed that the bakers tried my chocolate mousse and agreed it was bad tasting and tasted spoiled and offered to make me new cakes. It then took another 24 hours to get my refund (they did also refund my wedding deposit). I lost my trust in this location and cancelled my wedding from here. I know people have bad days and this food industry is hard right now but I hope they see this to learn a lesson on how not to treat people. I used to love their cakes but I am not sure I can eat them anymore. Their donuts and cookies are wonderful though. I know this was a rare situation but still upsetting and I personally will not order again unless they reach out to try to make it right on top...