Good, but not great.
I'm kinda torn between giving it three or four stars because I know the Looney Baker has been better than what I experienced this last time, but I'm going to just go with it and rate it based on what I saw first-hand last week.
We stopped in for some pastry at 12:30 and the place was nearly cleaned out of baked goods. Seriously, at noon? The staff didn't seem to be in much of a rush to make more and it kinda seemed like they were just going to coast through the rest of the day (until 6 p.m., I believe) on what they had left. I even asked if they were making anything else and the guy standing behind the counter brushed my question off. Well, okay then!
Like I said, there wasn't much left to order at noon, so we picked a few cream cheese and custard filled pastries to go. The selection was limited, but they had a few that looked like winners. To be honest, the custard-style pastry was kinda dry and tasted like it had been left over since the day before, although I'm sure it wasn't (they open early around 4:30 a.m. every morning), but it wasn't really fresh and was lacking in custard filling. The other pastries were okay, particularly the apricot pastry. That one was pretty decent and I would've ordered more of that type, but it was the only one left. What a pity.
I was jonesing for some decent coffee or a cappuccino (I mean, what bakery worth its salt doesn't have good coffee to go with their donuts, right?), but they only had a commercialized "gas station-type cappuccino" out of a dispenser for $1. I don't know, but I doubt that "gas cap" would've truly tasted anything like Salted Caramel Cappuccino as it said. I passed on it. There wasn't even any regular coffee made. Weird.
As for the service, well, it has been better and definitely should have been better on this day. The guy that waited on us acted like we were an intrusion, to an extent, and was a bit gruff. I don't remember the service being so non-cordial the last time I picked up donuts. Perhaps we came in on an off day or something, I'm really not sure. At any rate, the pastry was kinda stale and not quite up to snuff and the service didn't rate.
Oh, and outside on the door, there were signs plastered all over the place announcing prices would be raised throughout the bakery on March 1st (we were there a few days before). One of the nicest things about Looney Baker has been their consistent quality and low prices, but it looks like the prices won't be quite as nice after this week. I don't know how much they're going up, but hopefully the quality will go up again along with the bottom line.
It was rather weird because I've gotten really good donuts and breads from Looney Baker before, with excellent service, too, but this experience was just a little off. read more