Common Good Bakery — Restaurant in Traverse City

Best bakery in TC, and that's in the midst of some very stiff competition.

Common Good's breads have great flavor and crust. The flavor of their artisan sourdough is better than Zingerman's Bakehouse sourdough, my former top pick nationally. It's made peasant-style, without a glossy steam-injection oven crust - this makes a sandwich that's more appealing to chew and better balanced than with other artisan sourdough breads.

My only complaint is that Common Good needs to make their incredible hearty multigrain loaves more available. This nutty wholemeal bread is a better meal than breakfast cereal and makes fantastic toast, but it's only released on Wednesdays and Sundays, running out before noon. Pre-orders are possible, but you're still limited to the offerings from the regular baking cycle.

Service is very friendly and prompt; the staff are obviously delighted with the products they sell and will help you make informed decisions based on your tastes.

The bread club card (pre-pay $100, and get loaves for $4.00, baguettes for $1.00) is a fantastic deal if you're local and consume a loaf or two a week.

The croissants and Danish-type pastries are all top-notch - golden, flaky outsides with buttery, ethereally airy layers inside. The chocolate croissant and the egg tiles are among the best I've ever eaten.

The daily sandwiches and coffee are reliably delicious as well. There are vegetarian offerings available, which I think could be made in vegan variations.

I haven't tried their cakes and cookies myself, but have bought them for others and they were uniformly pronounced to be wonderful. [Full disclosure: I've been a pastry cook. By looks and aromas, these are very high quality offerings - no commercial shortenings or...

Pastry to die for. Cafe latte and cappuccino so good and creamy. Breads are wonderful. Wood fired pizza is next on my list to try. The above was my review until today when we came in to find that the “management” had changed the rules. My favorite pastry is the apricot pinwheel which has an apricot half in the center of a pinwheel of flaky pastry (croissant type dough) and it can no longer be warmed up because they don’t have a microwave!! This brings to mind so many responses…like how have you done it in the past because 3 weeks ago, there was no problem warming it up. The person at the counter said nothing with fruit or sugar can be warmed up per the manager. This makes absolutely no sense to me! Their breakfast roll which is delicious couldn’t be warmed up either because of the sugar I suppose and it only tasted fair because of that. This is a game changer for me. The pastry while still good was not excellent like it was before strictly because it was room temperature. Just blah and not as crispy as it should have been. I can go anywhere for coffee and I don’t need to spend $9.00 for a pastry that could be great but is only fair because the manager says they can’t use the oven. If the fruit and sugar is messing up the oven, use parchment paper! Don’t let that drive away your customers. Tomorrow I’ll be at Grand Traverse Pie Company where they will warm my pie! So, so...

This was the first time I tried this bakery and definitely the last time. They had items on display and you purchase things outside and then they just bring it to you. Not only the bread loaf on the display are a lot bigger then what I really got. Yes, definitely over priced for such a small bread. But I never thought they would sale me a burned bread. When I called they were very rude over the phone. I had to leave my number and end up calling again. I spoke with quality manager who apparently was the one who packed the bread. She said she thought it would been fine like that. I was told they will refund me the money for the bread. Definitely they need to improve in quality, price and definitely in customer service.

Regarding there reply. Wow, now they definitely are such liars. Please don’t believe them about the size of the loaf it’s definitely not the same. Also, I never questioned anyones integrity nor skills. I also didn’t speak to multiple employees it was one employee who was rude and I had to call back and I spoke with quality manager. I didn’t speak with anyone else and I didn’t question anything. I live over one hour away. Yes I’m getting the refund for product...