**This is just about custom cake orders**
When Martine's first opened, my family loved them. The cakes and cookies were far better than the other bakeries around us. We ordered many custom cakes for different occasions-birthdays, bridal showers, baby showers etc.
For awhile, everything was great with them and we always got what we wanted.
It was around 2013 that we started having issues. I hate lemon in my cakes. I don't like the trend of having lemon in vanilla cakes. It just isn't my cup of tea. I dislike it. That year, my birthday cake which was supposed to be vanilla with chocolate frosting, tasted like lemon.
Okay, one mistake I wasn't going to stop going there because of one time. For my going away party the following year (I ordered this cake after placing many holiday orders but no other custom cake orders between the incident mentioned in the last paragraph and this time) we ordered a cake that was supposed to be vanilla cake and chocolate frosting. This time, I personally sat down with the owner/manager to talk about the cake. I made it very clear that I wanted no lemon of any kind in the cake and that I wanted chocolate fudge filling instead of ganache or buttercream. We spoke for a good twenty minutes and I reiterated these points several times. I saw her write it down as well.
My mother picked up the cake and when it was brought out at the party I noticed that it had vanilla frosting on the outside. Ok. Again not the end of the world. I like vanilla fine. The cake looked beautiful too. They had put macaroons in the corners and placed different Disney characters on the cake because I was moving to work for Disney.
Eating the cake, there was definitely lemon in it. I strongly disliked it. The lemon was overpowering. Oh, there was no chocolate fudge filling either.
The last straw for me was stopping by the following day to let them know about my experience. I wasn't asking for a refund or an apology. I knew I was risking not getting what I wanted because of what had happened with my birthday cake the year before and I still chose to go to them. That's on me. The owner or manager that I spoke to was incredibly defensive and had the audacity to blame me. She said I was wrong about telling them I wanted chocolate fudge and didn't want lemon. I had saved my original order form/receipt and showed it to her. It blatantly said "NO LEMON" and "Chocolate fudge filling" on it. It was even underlined. The owner/manager just stammered after reading it and said that was the way life goes sometimes. She then walked ways from me. No apology, no refund, no offer of a future discount or anything.
I admit I still go back for linzer tart cookies sometimes (if you're reading this, Martine's please take the lemon zest out of these cookies- it would improve their taste in my opinion) but I will never place s custom order again.
The customer service is abysmal and they don't have any attachment to or investment in their product. It's such a shame because it was a truly extraordinary bakery when it first opened. Unfortunately it's quality has steeply declined since. read more