Excellent pastries, cakes, cookies, and breads. This is a real bakery (and quite a large one). I…read morehaven't been to any bakery that's remotely at this level in North or South Carolina. Even the most persnickety of New England transplants would have to acknowledge that this is a really good quality place -- they could hold their own against most of the great bakeries (many now gone) in the Northeast. And they are comically, absurdly, ridiculously, ludicrously better than any other bakery in the Southeast.
It's a German bakery, so the style of pastries is a bit more dainty and exquisite (gewählt, even) than those at a typical New England bakery (where danishes are generally massive, with a thin pastry border surrounding a vast caldera of fruit or cheese filling). But, that's just a stylistic thing. The pastries at Strossner's are elegant, very tasty, soft, not dry, and perfectly made. The apple and lemon fillings are as good as any I've had anywhere in the United States. The cheese filling, and chocolate cookies and cakes are excellent, too. Everything is also very fresh -- these are clearly pastries made without any sort of preservatives, so aging will quickly show.
Basically, this is the best bakery I've been to since at least 1984 (when I was a very small and chunky kid, in Fall River, MA, home of bakeries).
And, like the serious bakery they are, they also have breads. Some very well-made authentically German breads, too.
When there was a line, it moved quickly, and service was excellent at the counter. Everyone was very friendly and well-informed about the products. There are also some brunch-type items (quiches) but I didn't try them. They looked pretty good, though.
My only fear for Strossner's is that, due to the apparent lack of competition for hundreds of miles or more, there may one day be a loosening of standards. But, since they seem to still be owned and actively run by the original founding family, it's pretty darn good right now.
