Amphora Bakery

Reviews 3

A

A Private User

I got married 4 weeks ago and I just wanted to warn everyone NOT to get their wedding cake from Amphora Bakery in Herndon, VA because they delivered a FROZEN 5 tier cake to my wedding reception. They delivered the cake at 5:30pm and when I cut the cake at 10pm - the whole center of the cake was still frozen. I will admit the cake was beautiful and the one bite I did eat was good, but they do not care about their customers happiness or delivering a quality product. My hotel told me that the cake was so hard they almost BROKE their knife trying to cut it and the pieces kept crumbling when they were cut. They also said there is no way that I got all the servings I paid for. The hotel also documented the cake problem in the hotel event log that night. That just goes to prove that something was wrong with this cake. Several people at my wedding were commenting about watching the guy trying to cut into the frozen cake. So embarrassing!! When I contacted Amphora a few days after my wedding (while on my honeymoon) to let them know I wasnt happy. They didnt respond. When I called them to follow up - they just ran around in circles. All they would say is that they dont freeze their cakes and they dont know what happened. My wedding planner, the hotel and event staff have spoken to Amphora and its still not good enough for them to offer me any kind of refund. They did not offer an apology either. They do not return any phone calls - I had to continue to call them and follow up. To make this entire situation worse the owner, Maria Cholakis, was actually YELLING at me on the phone! She told me that they do not freeze their cakes and they dont even have a freezer big enough. I dont think they froze the cake after it was assembled, I think they froze the layers of cake and assembled it frozen and then decorated it. They tried to blame it on my hotel asking if they stored the cake after it was delivered - and it was not. Maria told me that I should have saved her a piece of cake and she would know whats wrong with it. How was I supposed to save the cake - I was on my honeymoon for almost 2 weeks? She said I should have had the hotel save the cake. What difference would that have made - it would be thawed by then or stale by the time I got back from my honeymoon. That is completely unreasonable. Not to mention that as the BRIDE, I should not be concerned with saving a slice of cake for the bakery. She told me that as far as shes concerned once they deliver the cake her job is done. I told her no its not - you need to stand behind your product and deliver quality. She continued to yell at me that she would not issue any kind of refund until she personally interviewed every person at my hotel to find out what happened. I told her that her staff had already done that, I have an email from the hotel stating that they logged that the cake was extremely difficult to cut and they also spoke to my wedding planner who had the event staff tell her the cake was frozen the night of my wedding. Amphora Bakery has all the information any reasonable person would need to offer an apology and some kind of reasonable refund to make a customer happy. The way they have handled the entire situation is wrong. My word as an unhappy customer should be enough for them to apologize and offer a reasonable refund. They will not do either and Ive been dealing with this for 3 weeks now. Unacceptable. Save yourself the trouble and DO NOT DEAL with Amphora Bakery!! They do not stand behind their cakes and dont care about their customers happiness.

AS

Ashlee Escobar

BRIDES STAY AWAY!!! THEY RUINED MY WEDDING DONT LET THEM DO IT TO YOU.!!! If it would let me post without a star I would. I ordered my wedding cake from here and had nothing but problems from the 1st meeting I had with them. You name it and it happened to me. All the hell they put me through leading up to my wedding was one thing. I figured that was the end of it and I would be able to enjoy my wedding and my cake would show up and be perfect.... HA yeah right. They brought me the wrong wedding cake!!!!! I ordered one 4 tier cake and 3 small round cakes. They brought the wrong round cakes and my tiered cake was the correct flavors but the wrong color and wrong design. The 3 small cakes I ordered were supposed to be tres leche and they brought me apple spice cake instead. Thats nowhere near similar. I ordered the brightest white of white. I was told that it would look like snow. However I got an ugly offwhite-orange color cake. When I went in 2 days before my wedding to take in the accessories for my cake I asked to speak to the woman I had been emailing with for months so wed all be on the same page since we had been having so many problems. I did that so I could make sure the color and design that I paid for would be on the cake. Honestly it wasnt even a complicated cake, all I wanted was heart scrolls on it, nothing extra, no complicated flowers or anything! The woman showed me the contract and I checked the pictures and colors and everything looked fine so silly me for assuming theyd be professional enough to get it correct 2 days later on my wedding day!!!! Also it turns out that the woman that I talked to that day was pretending to be the woman I had been emailing with. I didnt find out until almost a month later that it was a different person!!! They should have been honest and just said she wasnt there instead of lying to me. The day after my wedding my mom emailed corporate and they said that since the 3 small cakes were wrong she could have $200 back. We tried explaining that more than just the 3 small cakes were wrong that the color and design were too and they didnt care. We paid over $1600 for my cake, half of it was wrong and all your going to give us back is $200 just to make us go away? About a month after my wedding, when I got back from my honeymoon, I went to amphoras to speak to the manager Brandon. I hate writing bad reviews so I just wanted to talk to him and settle everything without me having to complain about it and leave a bad review. He apologized and claimed he wasnt told the whole story. I thought he was being sincere, he promised me multiple times that he would contact headquarters and call or email me back within a week. Its been a month and Ive called amphoras multiple times and heard nothing back so I have decided to take things into my own hands considering they dont care about their customers.

DI

Diane Sachs

For my daughters wedding this past weekend I purchased ten different 7" cakes and one 10" bridal cake from Amphora Bakery in Herndon. We had a cake buffet in place of one large cake to feed 115 people. Each cake was delicious, moist and beautifully decorated. The cake for the bridal party had a special grape and hops theme that was skillfully and artistically executed by the pastry chef. The cakes were delivered to the reception venue on time and in excellent condition and exactly as I had ordered them. Our guests were very pleased to have several types of cake to sample for desert and constantly commented on how well they were prepared and presented and how wonderful they tasted. I originally had reservations about ordering from Amphora due to a negative review but I had the opportunity to see and taste a cake from Amphora during a friends wedding and was very impressed with its quality and flavor. My neighbor said she had no trouble at all and was well pleased with the quality and price of her cake. When I brought the negative review up in the consultation, my consultant discussed it with me and forthrightly showed me how the complaint was not valid. I appreciated her candor. There was no pressure to buy a more expensive single wedding cake, my consultant was happy to help us select what ever we wanted and gave very good advice on what flavors of fillings to mix with what type of cake and icing. I also want to say how friendly they were when I was an hour late for my final cake review. I had the wrong time down on my schedule (my fault completely) and they still worked me in in a friendly manner. I highly recommend Amphora bakery for wedding cakes, you will be very pleased and will receive an excellent product for your money.