Helen Bernhard Bakery
| Address: | 1717 NE Broadway St, Portland, OR 97232, USA |
| Phone: | +1 503-287-1251 |
| Site: | helenbernhardbakery.com |
| Rating: | 4.2 |
| Working: | 6AM–6PM 6AM–6PM 6AM–6PM 6AM–6PM 6AM–6PM 6AM–6PM 8AM–3PM |
Location
Photos 100
Reviews 5
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Wendy Hibbert
My order was a bipolar mix of gross to yummy. Im not a food writer, but heres my take. I ordered a carrot cake muffin and lemon square. The lemon square filling was sub-par and extremely salty (not lemony "salty" or bitter, but like skimping on the lemon and attempting to make up that sour with salt or using pre-packaged filling). The crust was amazing in contrast and purely delectable- crumbly, buttery and no distinguishable sugar granules. The filling is 1-star quality, but the crust is 4-5... I scraped off most of the filling and ate the crust. The carrot cake portion of the muffin was dry and the baking soda/powder was noticeable. To top it off, my fiancé pulled a hair out of her mouth.. from the cake. Pretty ick... There was no noticeable texture of carrot, nuts or raisins. The amount of spice was underwhelming. Of course these are all personal preferences; the hair grossness is universal. The icing/frosting is cream cheese frosting and firm and heavy with sugar, with a whipped butter, slightly sweet decoration. I prefer toppings that are light and fluffy with 50-50 sugar to butter/cream cheese ratio, but thats simply my pallet. Sugars also cheaper and holds better than butter/cheese, so that would impact the modest price ($5.45 for both items). It didnt have that refrigerator taste. The cake gets a 0 and the topping a 2. I give it 2 stars because the service was very good, I love a nice crust for pies/squares and the price is modest. The salesperson was very patient with me and helped me with getting what Im in the mood for. I notice service is complained about, so I wanted to recognise that. Also, I understand that with food service, every now and then something unintended will end up in the food, but its always gross when it is on your plate. However, the overall quality is not worth a return trip for the items I purchased. I may give it a 2nd try if I dont find another independent bakery I like. For now, the limited, bigger portions in Trader Joes will have to do.
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Kathryn Ramos
Giving a 3-star review because there is no doubt in my mind that the products are good. This bakery does have good cakes/pastries & if it werent for that, I would have easily given 1 star due to customer service. I understand that there is plenty of foot-traffic going through this establishment on the daily basis, which is great for your business, but at least hire staff members who can keep a positive, can-do attitude during those overwhelming & busy times instead of ones who interrupts customers & treating us like a number. I dont complain much, let alone go out of my way to write reviews, but seriously...do they even LISTEN to what we have to say or are they just on auto-pilot? I have experienced this during our appointment for cake tasting as well as over the phone to verify the style of the cake we wanted & was treated the same both times. I rarely was able to finish a sentence, & when I did, all I received was confusion, a (metaphorically) scripted response, & validated that what I had written in my email w/ a picture of the style of cake I wanted wasnt even read. My fiancee & I will still be ordering our wedding cake through HBB because we were genuinely pleased w/ how the cake tasted, & by the looks of their samples in the store & in their portfolio that the cake designer is undoubtedly very talented. As far as the process of future interactions as needed, Im just going to have to shrug off any expectation that I would be treated like this is a special, personal experience.
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Gab
I purchased my wedding cake through this bakery. The tasting experience was very fun, although I think no one was on the same page that was working there. For example, we tried to pay for our cake while we were there, and they told us to call and pay over the phone when wedding cake people were working (?!), and then when we called them to pay over the phone, they said that they couldnt take payments over the phone and that we had to set up an appointment and come back in(?). At first, I wanted a "naked cake," which is one without outer frosting, but they dont do that because they get too dry. Fair enough. I found a frosted one I liked so I sent them a picture and style-wise they nailed it! It was a beautiful, simple cake. Our big layer was red velvet with cream cheese frosting. Our middle layer was white with raspberry buttercream and our top layer was chocolate cake with a mocha-type frosting. The cake was dry, dry, dry-- especially the white layer. The caterers could barely make slices out of it because it just crumbled under the knives. People are still coming to me and telling me the cake was almost inedible/way too dry. For a $400+ cake, this is disappointing. That being said, it was a beautiful cake and they delivered it on a Sunday (for a small fee). Not sure I would recommend this place for a wedding cake, even though the samples were incredible.
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A Private User
Two months ago I ordered a cake to feed 30 people for my husbands surprise party. A week before the party I called the bakery to check on the details. At first the lady said she couldnt find my order, then finally located it. The friday night before the party on Sat, I received a phone message at 5:30pm from the bakery. The message said your cake is ready, if you cannot pick it up tonight, we are open 6am-6pm tomorrow. I went in the next day to pick up my cake and the counter lady said they did not have it- they gave it away! OMG. I was expecting to feed guests in 2 hrs. She said there was 1 other cake in the cake case that was my ordered flavor but it was $15 more than the one I ordered. That was just too expensive. The lady was not remorseful at all, very rude and said well people dont come in and get their cakes sometimes. I DID! Brutally appalled by this bad attitude and getting rid of my cake we had to settle on another one- not my flavor or decorations. As we were leaving I asked about the one in the case, the expensive one and I found out THAT WAS MY CAKE. She LIED. They did not sell it, they just redecorated it and charged more $. She could have scraped off decorations and given me MY cake but she lied and then was caught. UNREAL. Will never use that bakery again.
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A Private User
DO NOT RECOMMEND!!!! After doing a cake tasting with Helen Bernhard’s, my fiancé and I decided to order our wedding cake from them. We chose all the details we wanted (cake and filling flavors, design number from their book, size of the cake, etc). I went in to place the order a few weeks later and they would not help me! They said anything wedding related required an appointment, and they already had their limit of two scheduled for that day. I thought they misunderstood so I clarified that we had already done the appointment for the tasting and now I just needed to place the order; but that didn’t change their answer. They were not willing to stop for 5 minutes to take my $300 cake order, and yet had no problem letting customers take 5 minutes to pick out each of their dozen doughnuts individually. Customers were in picking up birthday cakes and ordering other event items which they didn’t have an appointment for, and yet they were not refused. I could not believe the service, what a waste of gas out their. I will never return to this bakery.
