I went to Romeo's Bakery on Hertel for the first time around 7pm, and by now I had already had…read moredinner so I came out for dessert.
I ordered 2 of their Italian wedding cookies (which was very good), but I had a tough time deciding on which cakes. After some questions/answer session, I finally decided on some flaky custard pastry and a cup of coffee, along with the cookies. I paid for my ordered and even though we didn't require table service, I still tipped the kid behind the counter. Afterwards, we went outside with our order since the weather was nice this evening.
After sitting down, I had cut into my dessert, and started tasting the custard which was very good. Then I picked up a piece of the pasty, and the pastry was too soft to be flaky and at the same time, too hard to chew. Essentially, the pastry was stale. Immediately, I said to my friend, "I don't like this dessert it's very hard to chew". She said she comes here all the time and it's not supposed to be like that, so she tasted it and then suggested I go in and ask to exchange it for a different dessert.
I took my dessert in, almost completely whole and the kid behind the counter asked if anything was wrong with it. I told him that since this is my first time having it, I'm not sure how it's SUPPOSED to taste so honestly, I wasn't able to pinpoint exactly what was wrong with it but I did ask if I could exchange it for another dessert? He tells me, well since there's nothing wrong with it, he couldn't do an even exchange, so I'd have to buy a new dessert. I told him, forget it and he can throw out my dessert. I left it on the counter for him to trash, and walked out. So now I'm very upset. Not only did you sell me this STALE piece of pastry, but now you're unwilling to fix the problem. Furthermore, if a customer is willing to trash the entire dessert, almost whole, don't you THINK there could possibly be something wrong with it? It seems like this very simple common sense thought process never took place with this kid.
My friend was waiting for me outside, and she was adamant that there was something wrong with the dessert so she went inside to talk to them again. She tells them that she comes here all the time, and that there is something wrong with the dessert. This time, they admitted that maybe the dessert sat in the fridge for too long and then they gave her an exchange dessert! Why did it take two complaints for you to correct the problem?
I was so upset with their lack of common sense customer service, I will NEVER come back here for anything ever again. Based on the reviews, they may be known for their desserts, but my dessert was stale, and their service was lacking. There are plenty of other businesses on Hertel that can give me much better service, and UN-STALE pastries.
