Benkert's Bakery — Restaurant in Town of Brookhaven

I've been going to Benkerts for 30+ years. As a child my parents would use them for our monthly Sunday morning jelly donut and pastry run, plus a few-times per year cake purchases. They were always on our families top-few bakery list. I've been going to bakeries less as an adult since cakes and pastries are more widely available, but am still close enough to use them from time to time. Maybe I hold them to older standards, but like many establishments they've declined as the years went by. Maybe it's since been sold, maybe old-school German bakers have retired and are hard to come-by, who knows. It's good, probably better than most but they're definitely not the same. I recently went in and asked for a small Tiramisu cake (not uncommon for a full-scale bakery to have on-hand). They didn't have any and I actually understood in this slow business Covid times. The girl, wanting to be helpful, said "sometimes we have small Tiramisu cakes but they're very small. I'll check but can't promise". In these days of lackluster customer service, I was so appreciative that she even offered. She did come out with it and I thanked her and said it's perfect. It was only a gesture for someone's birthday who happens to like Tiramisu and there actually wasn't even a need for a larger cake. I again thanked her. However, it ended up being horrible. It was only decorated to look like Tiramisu with a lady finger cookie sticking out of it....but inside was nothing but a stale yellow cake with old buttercream frosting. No little splash of rum, no delicate coffee flavor. It made a great presentation but that's where it ended. The original owners or bakers would not have let this even be sold. For old-times sake I also bought 2 jelly donuts for myself and son to remind him that a real bakery jelly donut is nothing like Dunkin Donuts.....Well - these were. They were nothing more than mediocre. Another once great reputation establishment that's...

Life long customer here…family and all! Always purchased from them for all events. Sadly now, they have lost our business! We ordered a birthday cake from them, to start the buttercream was salty!!! Not to mention one layer was supposed to be raspberry preserve (it was just cheap gel) and the other was chocolate fudge. Now, when someone constructs a cake…it should go heavier filling at the bottom and the filling with less structural integrity go on top, well not with Benkert’s! So when we cut into the cake it started to fall apart!!! It was an utter EMBARRASSMENT! Everyone at the party agreed…it was sickening! We ate the grocery store cupcakes instead and threw it out. My family and friends are all in agreement that they will no longer support this “bakery”. My mother called to speak with the owner Andy and he was rude, careless, and didn’t believe any complaint he received (big red flag in businesses!). It’s clear he has stopped caring about his business. It’ll wind up being another failed local business in our community…so sad to see…but they need to learn they aren’t invincible just because they are a long time business just as others have been learning. This is goodbye from a generations old...

My family used to frequent Benkerts bakery when I was a child and this year I was looking for petit fours and pfeffernusse cookies. I called the bakery and placed an order at 12 noon and paid for it over phone. When I got to the bakery at 5:30 pm, the Petit fours were not ready so I waited a little bit which was not a problem, only to find out that their version of a petit four was an icing covered rainbow cookie. I was highly disappointed and paid way too much money for these glamorous rainbow cookies. In addition, While I waited for the petit fours to be ready I did purchase a 2 pound box of rainbow cookies (not knowing I was already getting them in a petit four) which were dried out and disappointing. I also bought macaroons which were ok, so after spending $85 at a bakery that I traveled 30 minutes to get to, I would’ve been better off going to stop and shop. The bakery is definitely not what it used to be years ago — very sad very disappointing will never go...