Upscale, Bougie, Pricey
Yep, that would be three words I use to describe Julien's!
This new storefront just opened in Granby, creating a buzz around the surrounding communities. The original farm store is still open a little west of this location.
I went out on this Friday morning early, arriving just after the store 7am opening.
The display cases were stocked full with many many choices, including breads, croissants, danish, coffee cakes, donuts, cinnamon rolls, along with the fancy coffees and lattes
To the left of the showcases and ordering area is a gorgeous sitting room.
The staff was helpful and accommodating, taking my order. But when I was paying for the pastries, she just walked away... Not even a smile or thank you. That was kind of strange.
I ordered two cinnamon rolls, two blueberry coffee cakes, and two regular coffee cakes.
The cost for all six of these with the little tip, came to $58+. This amount made me think I was on Madison Avenue in New York City. Yes, this kind of hit the pocket hard.
When I got home, and upon opening the box, I was expecting these flavors and smells to just smack me right in the face. That didn't happen... I smelled oil... Like stale deep fried oil and I don't know why, maybe it was the box.
I first tried the cinnamon roll with cream and it was meh. Was it $6 - $10 good? No. The cinnamon roll outer part was stale and deep brown, overcooked. The pastry just didn't taste fresh. But I liked the cream topping that accompanied the cinnamon roll. That was really good.
Now I know I'm gonna hear that they were just recently baked, but I don't care. The cinnamon roll was stale on the outside! For what this was, and all the hype, disappointing.
The blueberry coffee cake was interesting. It didn't smell like coffee cake. It smelled more like used cooking oil. Biting into it, the blueberry on top candied, stuck on my teeth, and it was inedible. I had to kind of pick through my napkin, and get the crunchy hard inedible candied part out. It also seemed like the cinnamon brown sugar topping was lacking. The blueberry that made it into the coffee cake was OK. Dense, and just ok.
The regular coffee cake was very dense, and that was also a little stale around the outside. There was not a lot of brown sugar and cinnamon topping on it. It wasn't very sweet at all. This pastry was just OK also
Now I know what you're thinking... How can this guy eat three of these pastries for breakfast... great question but I sampled these pastries with three of my neighbors. We cut the three different pastries into fours.
My three neighbors all felt the same way as I did. All three liked the cinnamon roll the best. The coffee cakes, they stated were just mediocre, very dense, and lacking flavor
As good as this place may appear to be, I would say certain occasions it would be a worthwhile visit, a once a year treat.....maybe
This by no means is to bash this establishment, but geez, this is a little pricey for the average family with just par quality of the pastries
I really was expecting to be blown away by the quality of the pastries.
Instead, I'm disappointed with Julien's read more