Sweet Surrender Bake House — Restaurant in Town of Hempstead

My review is significantly skewed towards customer service. I ordered 3 cakes from this bakery for pick up on 12/15. They were important cakes for my gender reveal. As a huge dog family, our plan was to have our dogs devour into two cakes to reveal the gender. We also ordered a 3rd cake for our family to take pictures after. I spoke at length to the girl who took my order about the plan and design, which was met with a lot of indifference - which would have been fine if it wasn’t also met with a lack of hearing.

The night of our reveal, we allow our dogs to eat the cakes and 3 minutes in, realize there is no color in their cakes and only in the large cake. While we were disappointed that this moment we’d envisioned for our first child did not go as planned, we made due and still enjoyed the moment.

The next day, I called sweet surrender with the intention of letting them know the mix up to give them the heads up for future orders, not as much care for reimbursement because they are small business. Manager wasn’t in and they said I’d get a call back. However 2 days later and no call, which is fine - businesses can forget! So I called 2 days later again and was connected to the manager. My hugest frustration in this is that I was met with blame from the manager for this mix up. There was no apology nor accountability taken on their end for any part in this mix up. They insisted because there was no recording of me actively placing my order, I cannot prove that I did tell them color in all of our cakes. As a small business owner myself, I am absolutely appalled that a business would respond to their customer like that. He insisted his employee took the order as stated and that it was my responsibility to check the invoice?? I’m sorry:

I do not understand the typical formats and styles of every individual store invoice. They didn’t review the invoice with me, confirming all the details of the order on paper so that I should know what to look for. How am I, a new customer, supposed to recognize an error in the invoice. Quite frankly I didn’t want to look in detail at the invoice if I was not told to review it in case they had written down the color of the gender. Why take that risk if I was not told to confirm the invoice? I simply saved it for pick up.

The manager insisted on store credit (I’m sorry how am I supposed to get a new order for my gender reveal. That isn’t repeatable and I’m not taking the risk with another order) or $15 back for two defunct cakes.

Realistically I think this business just lacks pure common sense. I understand people may make unique, atypical orders. But to get orders for 3 GENDER reveal cakes and have no color reveal in 2 of them - it does not take more than 2 minutes to call the customer and confirm before making the cakes in case there was error in communication.

Honestly the cakes we got were nothing amazing anyway. They tasted fine but not by miles worth ruining sometime we envisioned for 5 months for our first child. My husband and I run a well maintained and followed social media page for our dogs so we’re particularly excited to share this moment when we were ready on our page and have lost a lot of that opportunity as well due to carelessness from this business.

FYI seems like this business has a history of making errors in cakes and blaming the customers. I just didn’t have the foresight to read other reviews from other patrons who suffered the same fate as me!

TLDR, DO NOT USE THIS PLACE FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS. THEY ARE NOT ATTENTIVE TO THEIR PATRONS

Attached is a small segment of our gender reveal where we give up having our dogs do the gender reveal because we realized...

This place is confusing. First off the parking situation is terrible. They have a parking lot but the employees use the lot so there is really only one space to park and you have to enter on a corner where cars are zooming by. Very dangerous parking here or on the shoulder on such a busy street. I cant imagine trying to pick up a big birthday cake here or on a holiday but was willing to try.

Then you go in and you cant make an appointment for cake testing. You have to tell them a week advance what cake you want to try and what exact filling then they will call you when its ready at $10 each? They give you a large menu. What if I dont know what filling I want isn't that the point of a cake testing? Why does it take a week to order a piece of cake and where is it coming from that it takes that long? I was spending a least $500 on a cake I told them the design and the size so its wasnt a lack of spending issue. The exchange was odd to me. I went to two other bakeries and had cake testing appointment no problem and various fillings too. I wouldnt mind paying $10 but this was just for one cake and one filling to try, I wanted a sample. I got some items to go anyway and they told me its not representative of the cake because these items are frozen (at the bakery counter?). My strawberry had mold on it see picture and oreo was stale and chocolate stuck on (yuck). The berry cake was decent but not any better than the other bakery i went to. I really wanted to like this place. The cake pop was delicious but I went back again on another day (same parking issues btw) on the hopes of buying a cake pop and the macaroons I got for my kids but they didnt have any at all. Like I said this place is confusing for a new customer. Very hit or miss! They lost my business which is a shame because I really wanted to give...

Worst cake I had in my life. Picked up a red velvet cake for my husband's birthday. We are all foodies and barely finished one piece. It was so dry I threw the rest of the cake in the garbage! Got a red velvet from Batter Up a few days later and it was so juicy, everyone immediately praised it.

Also customer service is awful. I previously pre-ordered a bunch of cupcakes for my child's school with simple instructions. Picked them up the evening before so I could drop it off together with my child the next morning as part of a treat basket. When I opened the box later at night at home I saw it was all decorated for Father's Day. It was Father's Day, but I pre-ordered it specifically for my child's teachers. It was not previously prepared as I would expect a pre-order to be, but quickly packed together in a rush when I got there to pick up my order. I had to change my plans and couldn't prepare the gift basket the night before. They told me I needed to bring back all "wrong cupcakes as proof and to be thrown away"! So I dropped off my child, then went back to the bakery, had to wait again, prep at home and drop off without my child being able to even see it. I later wrote a polite email to the store stating what had happened and to ask if it was their policy to destroy food rather than let the customer keep it as a compensation for the hassle. Never got a reply.

Better drive a bit further for really amazing cake and good...