Jean-Jacques Bakery

OWNER DOES NOT WANT BUSINESS!\r \r \r \r I was a customer of this bakery since it opened until today. Advice, DO NOT PURCHASE GROUPON or LIVING SOCIAL & expect them to honor the rules. I spoke to a very polite manager yesterday who said she would speak with the owner & Living social & get something worked out. (by the rules of the company printed on the voucher they MUST honor it). The owner called today, only said she was the owner, no name, & proceeded to LOUDLY tell me why I was wasting her & her company's time. I was shocked, there was nothing leading up to this to indicate this behavior. I explained I am a long time customer & TRIED to repeat I still wanted to place an order. She kept yelling about the coupon so I asked if there was a Mr. I could speak to, if she was married. She then asked me ""Why did I want to know how big his ??? was?"" ""Or how much sex he gave her?"" I said no, I want to speak to someone not screaming vulgarity. Then she went into an example about if she purchased panties from Victoria Secret & I had enough! I told her she had a FOUL MOUTH & H/U. \r \r I only quote this, leaving out the bad words, to show if she & her husband (appears to be the Pastry chef). That if ANYTHING goes wrong look out, GOOGLE them Sadly, these owners DO NOT CARE! \r \r Plus, I foolishly got some different pastries yesterday, their winter cake, UGH, each person that tasted it said it was horrible & I should have stuck with my regular order. I won't be making ANY more WEEKLY regular orders anymore. Obviously, this ignorant woman didn't think I HAD someone picking up most of my orders for me on the spot. I tried to tell her she was throwing away business talking to a customer like this but she said she doesn't care about ""you people"" meaning me, a coupon user.\r \r I just wanted to share my experience since she IS the OWNER! sad......\r \r I always compliment & write good reviews but I have NEVER come online to write a review to warn people about the honesty & rudeness of a private business.\r I have NEVER had someone behave like that since I was a Collector trying to get $$ from them.\r December 19, 2012 more

Where do I begin? With the fact that I've bought every birthday cake from this bakery for ten years, or the reason why I'll never set foot in there again (until they alienate their last client, sell the place, and it gets reborn)? For a special holiday celebration we took out of town guests to Jean-Jacques. I bought $30 worth of pastries and coffee, but after one bite of mine, found it spoiled. I discreetly spit the foilness into my napkin and carried the plate back to the county for a fresh pastry. Had I received an apology and new pastry, I wouldn't have thought twice. Every chef/baker makes mistakes. What I got instead was resistance from the owner (""IWe baked them this morning. What you're tasting is alcohol.""). When I had my husband taste it (he's a chef) we got insulted (""You need to go to Europe."" ). I might have chalked it all up to a REALLY bad day and forgiven, if, when we were leaving, the owner hadn't FLIPPED MY HUSBAND OFF! Seriously? Is business so good you can do that to regular customers? Wow. Hat's off to them, right? It would have been funny if it didn't mean the end of my regular pastry-savoring dates with my six-year-old. Thank goodness Can Can is just a hop skip and a jump away. more

Where do I begin? With the fact that I've bought every birthday cake from this bakery for ten years, or the reason why I'll never set foot in there again (until they alienate their last client, sell the place, and it gets reborn). For a special holiday celebration we took out of town guests to Jean Jacques. I bought $30 worth of pastries and coffee, but after one bite of mine, found it spoiled. I discreetly spit the foilness into my napkin and carried the plate back to the county for a fresh pastry. Had I received an apology and new pastry, I wouldn't have thought twice. Every chef/baker makes mistakes. What I got instead was resistance from the owner (""IWe baked them this morning. What you're tasting is alcohol.""). When I had my husband taste it (he's a chef) we got insulted (""You need to go to Europe."" ). I might have chalked it all up to a REALLY bad day and forgiven, if, when we were leaving, the owner hadn't FLIPPED MY HUSBAND OFF! Seriously? Is business so good you can do that to regular customers? Wow. Hat's off to them, right? It would have been funny if it didn't mean the end of my regular pastry-savoring dates with my six-year-old. Thank goodness Can Can is just a hop skip and a jump away. more

My wife and I ordered a cake for our son about a week ago and first of all, it was NOT what we had asked for! Plus, they overcharged us. The cake was horrible and no one wanted to eat it at our party. My wife called to complain the following day and we had to speak to the owner's wife or someone named Emma who was the rudest person we have ever encountered! You could hear her shouting in the background to her employees and didn't care about the customers one bit! Before you go to Jean-Jacques, take a look at other Richmond bakeries because this one has turned into the dumps!!! more

I wish I could give this place 0 stars but the review won't let me. I am rarely the person who writes a review for a place, but I feel like I need to in this instance and I will explain why. For my 26th birthday, my husband wanted to have a 3D Disney Winnie the Pooh (my favorite character) cake made for a surprise party. He researched local bakeries and decided, based on reviews, to go with Jean Jacques. 4 weeks before my birthday, he showed the lady at the counter a picture of what he wanted and she wrote detailed instructions to include: 3D Winnie the pooh, red tshirt, holding a blue honey pot with the words ""Happy Birthday Kelly"". She also wrote that there was to be absolutely no chocolate on the cake as wife is allergic and that the bakery was not to charge the credit card number given to them as customer would be paying cash upon pick up (my husband did not want the card charged because it was a SURPRISE gift). She seemed very positive that they could do what my husband asked and do it well.\r \r Well, the bakery charged the card, $25 more than the pice they quoted my husband and they charged it two days before my birthday. When I saw the charge I actually got excited because I had an idea what my husband was getting because I remembered us talking about it a few months ago. When he picked up the cake my husband was extremely disappointed. The cake that was given to him was nothing like winnie the pooh. It was two round cakes of different sizes placed on a sheet, covered in orange tinted icing with a white rim, and CHOCOLATE eyes, nose, mouth, and WHISKERS! As my mother in law describes it, it was ""the cat that ate Winnie the Pooh"". The cake had no dimension, no red tshirt, no honey pot, and did not resemble even a bad version of winnie the pooh (Pooh has no whiskers). And it had chocolate! There were so many mistakes it was unbelievable. The lady at the front tried to contact both the baker and the owner and the only conclusion they could come to was to offer my husband 25% off the cost of the cake which apparently already costed $25 more than it was supposed to! IT WAS RIDICULOUS!!!!\r \r To top it off, they said the owners fiance is the only one who knows how to refund a charge/debit card so we would have to wait until the next morning for the refund as my husband did not even accept the cake. 3 days passed and still no refund so he called again and they said it would done immediately once the fiance got off the other line. She must still be talking on that phone because 16 hours later, we still have not received the refund and no apology from the owner or baker either. This place may have decent bread and pastries, but you can be assured they will not be receiving any business from us in the future! I wish the best of luck to lady trying to receive her refund several months later who posted a few days ago. I would report it to the better business bureau if you need to, because I certainly will if I have to.\r \r I am just thankful that the cake was for a 26 year old and not a little boy or girl expecting Winnie the Pooh on his/her birthday who would have been even more upset. \r more

You have got to be kidding me. After ordering a cake a month ahead of time and following up on the order a... more

Worst bakery in Richmond. Placed a simple order a month in advance and they did not come through. We did... more

You have got to be kidding me. After ordering a cake a month ahead of time and following up on the order a few days before the scheduled pick-up, t... more

Worst bakery in Richmond. Placed a simple order a month in advance and they did not come through. We did everything we could to make sure the ord... more

You have got to be kidding me. After ordering a cake a month ahead of time and following up on the order a few days before the scheduled pick-up, they didn more

Worst bakery in Richmond. Placed a simple order a month in advance and they did not come through. We did everything we could to make sure the order was not lost. Called several days before pick up to verify order was still active. We were assured that it was and that the cake would be started 2 days prior to pick up. Went in the night before and still no cake. Employee showed us the order slip and again assured us that the cake would be made because Emma gets there at 4am. Well, when we went to pick up cake at 7am it had not been made. Emma was defensive and rude. Her husband, you could tell this was not the first time it happened, was equally frustrated with her. Thankfully, Williams Bakery came through for us and made a beautiful 2 tier cake for our mother's 70th birthday. Go to Williams Bakery!! Save yourself the heartache and stress!! Trust me on this!!! more

I am originally from Upstate New York, and if you are fromthe Northeast, you will just not find any bakeries to compare favorably with those of New York or New Jersey. Jean Jacques bakery is no exception. The cheese danish was very dry, the apple turnover small and with tiny chunks of apple barely there, the custard in the creampuff was not good at all. They try to do Italian, but they fall very short on the sfogliatelle (like hockey pucks and very dry) and cannolis. I am still looking for a decent bakery down here, but haven't found it yet. Also VERY Expensive and not at all worth it. more

Very disappointed by this bakery! Would not use them again. My birthday cake was horrible. Way over priced for such disappointment. The lack of detail was astonishing. I would expect a bakery with better reviews to do something. They haven't offered to make up for the horrible experience in any way. Cracked fondant, unprofessional delivery, sour/gross filling, cake that crumbled when cut...shall i continue... Very sad birthday experience. more

In summary...when I approached the counter to let one of the counter folks know I was waiting to pick up a cake...she scoffs at me, waves her hand toward the others and says, ""they can help you."" She returns, am guessing after other person indicated my upset, and announces that she is the owner, it is not her job to help me, that she has not been rude to me, that she is a very nice person (yes, she makes this claim) and then stomps away while saying that I can buy cakes from Ukrops. Just as background...I have bought approximately 5 to 6 cakes from this place in the past year or two and many croissants. I had never had the ""pleasure"" of meeting the owner on any of my previous occasions. I've enjoyed the cakes and croissants, even though I know they're a bit overpriced, but have done so because I believe in supporting local businesses and know that Carytown rents are not cheap. But apparently all this time business for this small shop has been booming so much they can encourage shoppers to go elsewhere. more

Beyond disappointing. I recently needed to order a King Cake [aka Mardi Gras cake] for an event I was hosting. After calling around to several bakers in town, I found that Jean-Jacques seemed to be the only baker capable/willing to bake a King Cake out of season. I was originally told by the first person I spoke with over the phone at Jean-Jacques that, although they weren’t sure about the price, they knew it wasn’t over $20. Furthermore, they agreed to grant my request to have the plastic baby figurine inserted into the cake as is done traditionally in Louisiana where King Cakes are served year round. They explained that although, they had previous trouble with this in year’s past as someone, unknowingly, had bitten into the plastic figurine and threatened them in a litigious manner, they would go ahead and place the plastic figure inside because I was making a specific request for a special order cake. The following day I called back to get a definite price and Laura quoted a price of $18.45 for the cake. The day after that, I placed the order for the cake and was told, the cake would actually cost $20.95. When my boyfriend went to pick up the cake, he waited for 5-6 minutes and watched the store clerk eat her lunch before finally going behind the counter to serve him. He was charged $22 and was told they would not place the plastic figure inside the cake, afterall. So much for the original charge of $18.45, with plastic figurine inside the cake like I was originally told, a nominal difference I know, but the principle remains the same. When I served the cake at my event, it looked outstanding. However, upon taking my first bite, I realized something was very wrong with this cake. It was so dry and brittle, crumbling as we ate it, and tasting like a pretzel or expired dough...BTW this is NOT how a King Cake is intended to taste. As a host, I was actually embarrassed...no one said a word as we all bit into this cake that tasted and felt like stale crackers. Just awkward silence. Later I decided to phone Jean-Jacques to let them know something must have gone wrong in the baking process as there was no way this cake was intended to taste and feel this way. I was also agitated by this point that the product was not delivered as promised and the cost continually inflated every time I spoke with the staff. When I phoned Jean-Jacques, I spoke with a nice girl over the phone who was very apologetic and immediately offered a refund. She then forwarded the call to Liliana who didn’t seem to understand the problem with the cake tasting and feeling the way it did. However, she promised to talk with the bakers and call me back either later that day or the following morning. A week later, after receiving no response from Jean-Jacques I decided to follow-up myself. Again, I was greeted by a nice girl on the phone and then passed onto a manager named Emma. Emma actually laughed in a mocking manner over the phone when I explained that I used to live in Louisiana, and that the King Cakes taste nothing like what I had gotten from Jean Jacques. She said, “Well, this is done in the French style and this is how we intend for them to taste and feel.” Apparently, “French” style equals revolting. She also revoked any previously offered refund and told me to have a nice day before hanging up. Clearly there is some major miscommunication going on behind the scenes at Jean-Jacques and customer service is no where near the top of their priority list, neither is the quality of their baked goods. So if you want to be lied to about the price, promised things they actually can’t or won’t deliver on, and end up taking home a product you are embarrassed to serve, go directly to Jean-Jacques...I assure you they will come through for you. more

Upon a customer of mine requesting an Italian themed menu to specifically include a traditional Italian cannoli cake for a high profile catered dinner I called Jean Jacques bakery based on their reputation (not my previous experiences). I was told on the phone how there cannoli cream was made with the base ingredients being ricotta cheese and sugar (with a few added things) I received the cake and cut into them moments prior to serving and found a pastry cream based ""cannoli"" filling. For anyone knows a good traditional cannoli cake, this was the furthest things from. \r \r After repeated phone calls to find out the Manager cannot make managerial decisions I finally spoke with the owner Joseph. I explained that although the product was good it was not what was ordered, expected, nor promised to me. After which the stereotypical arrogance of European Chef began to shine through. He could not accept the fact that someone, who tasted his product, was not satisfied. To make a traditional cannoli cake its as simple as not putting the cannoli cream into the shell but spreading it between the cake. \r \r My guests called it a glorified Boston Cream Pie. Joseph did nothing to rectify the situation as far as any type of reimbursement or product replacement nor did he seem to care that a customer was unsatisfied. \r His arrogance to accept any type of criticism is baffling. I suggested to educate his staff so they would not misrepresent his recipes or product and he refused to educate anyone not to give away anything in his recipes. I wasn't made aware of pastry cream in the cannoli cream, thus I was not expecting it. Who would??? \r \r DO YOURSELF A FAVOR GO SOMEWHERE ELSE, AT LEAST YOU'LL KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GETTING. Pros: They Filled the Order Cons: They Incorrectly Filled the Order more

Centurion Properties VII Real Estate Company had the fabulous opportunity of experiencing this incredible bakery in Cary Town! We shall INSIST that they will be included in all our Open Houses and Agent Tours. The Fruit Tarts are to die for!!! Their delicate crust melted so luxuriously in our mouths. The fruit exploded out of its exquisite glaze to tantalize our tongues in so many directions at once. We could continue on and on about our favorites, however, that would take too long. The French Baguettes!!!! Ooooh Laaaa Laaaa!! You need to experience this one for yourself.................JEAN JACQUES BAKERY MUST BE THE 8TH WONDER OF THE WORLD!!!!!\r \r Pros: Intimate environment Cafe with French flair! Cons: Wish there were more locations!!!! more

Having moved here from a city where I patronized a third generation baker from France, I was hopeful that this bakery could become my standby in Richmond. I found, however, the items I ordered (creme brulee, fresh fruit tart and strawberry mousse tart) to be average at best. Having gotten used to the buttery flakiness of the crust a ""true"" French baker, I was sorely disappointed. My son, who only will eat cake from our previous baker, even commented that his strawberry confection was ""ok"" but not great.\r \r For a city where the most popular place to buy baked goods is the grocery store, this is a little bit better. But my choice overall would be the Deserterrie in Midlothian. more