Moonside Bakery & Cafe

A bit pricey for what you get, but hey, you’re on Main Street in HMB, you’re gonna pay tourist prices. Get over it and enjoy the quality fresh food, neighborhood feel, and friendly service. There are better finds along Main Street, but this gives you another option nearby.

So much going for this place in terms of location, but having to wait over 30 minutes for 3 pancakes makes it a «never return». Might be fine for pastries, but the croissant (maple with pumpkin cream cheese) I had was decent, but nothing write home about. A tip for restaurants — communication is key — when a customer is ordering and you know you are really backed up, let them know up front that you think it will take 30 – 40 minutes for their order, that way, they can make a different choice if they want, rather than just give them an annoyed «our kitchen is really small and we only have 2 cooks» excuse after they’ve been waiting forever. And then, when they come up to ask about it, your annoyance at my completely understandable question doesn’t make the situation any better — maybe a kind and real apology about the wait and offer to buy me a coffee refill? So then, there’s the bathroom — although there are multiple stalls, the restaurant only has one key to the main door, so you have to wait for someone to come out even though there are stalls free. I waited for about 10 minutes for some guy to come out, but then finally gave up and left. I heard them telling this to so many customers (again, they seemed annoyed) so why not get another key or install a key pad lock that can be used by multiple customers?

Fantastic and fresh panini with warm, toasted pita. The potato salad was freshly made and very tasty. Friendly service too! Key lime tart topped off the meal. Wine selection could be better.

Mediocre is actually being generous here.
Everything looked lovely, but nothing was actually as good as it looked. I had a Napoleon — it was okay but nothing special, and kind of lacked flavor. My mom got the apple strudel thing and it was meh — the apples were kind of hard and also not much flavor. My dad got a scone, and i think that was the best out of all 3 but still not great.
One star for the atmosphere — the seating area is super cute with lots of open tables.
What was really a turn off though, was the service. No one ever smiled, they all were short with people, like they didnt want to be there and it was a strain to ask what you wanted/​if you were ready.
For such an expensive place, you’d expect some sort of customer service, but there literally was none. Skip here and go to any of the other cute cafes.

Slowest service ever. Food cold when delivered. Very poor seating layout. Only seats left were close to restroom being kept bumping into our group. Restroom out of order. If you are just picking something up, may be okay, but not a great place for dining with others. If seating is available outside and weather nice, take it.

Had an old fashioned cupcake — hard vanilla icing and vanilla cake. It was refreshing and not overly sweet like so many of the trendy cupcakes tend to be. There were many other interesting breads, cakes, cookies, and candies to choose from.

Overpriced food for mediocre service. We came to half-​moon bay as a trip from the Sacramento area, and was having fun until we got hungry and then we made the unfortunate mistake if you come to this café. They do not know how to treat their customers, the staff was mean and the food was way overpriced and you barely got anything for it. If you want a refill on your «Free Water» you actually half to go to the counter and request a refill on it. Waiting for them to go out of business so an actual café can take over with the right knowledge on how to make it successful and treat their customers the right way. Please you don’t make my mistake and go there.

Hmmm… I was not impressed. I had a veggie burger which was OK, and my mom had a turkey sandwich and I think she thought it was OK too… but the whole meal with two sodas cost over $ 26. And this wasn’t even a restaurant where you were waited on! Still, there was quite a crowd which makes me think I didn’t pick the right thing to order… perhaps I’ll give it another chance but I don’t know.

Unfortunately, the negative reviews of this place are pretty accurate. We ordered 5 pieces of combined pastries and cookies and somehow it came out to $ 27? I was ok with the price but the quality and taste was just ok. We got a tiramisu and it was pretty terrible and dry.
Overall this place was very mediocre but expensive. We won’t be coming back.

Oh my the food was bad. Coffee and tea were good. They should stick to that and pastries.

Came to this little bakery and ordered the pizza. Sometimes it’s fun to drive to a place and not even look on Unilocal for a recommendation. This was one of those instances sometimes it creates an unnecessary bias towards a place and sometimes gives me a certain expectation.
The bakery was inside of a square. Inside this square (on a Saturday afternoon) we were greeted with a beautiful acoustic set of Irish folk music. There were also seating outdoors if you wanted to enjoy the beautiful outside weather.
A few small tables scattered inside but the main things that you see are a big fire wood oven and pastries that were all over the place. I felt like I stepped into a nasty oasis. Maybe this was the baked goods version of willy wonkas chocolate factory.
The pizza was delicious. The ingredients were very fresh. From the tender sausages, to the bits of bacon, to the fresh garden variety of veggies packed in my pizza. I loved it. My friend bought this little chocolate «mushroom» thing that I wish I remembered the name. It was delightful. The people there were all friendly, the place was well put together, and the food was delicious. Go here if you’re down here and get a pizza

Their breads are great! The sourdough is one of my favorites and their white bread is the best sandwich and grilled cheese bread around.
Everything else is just okay. I would never go out of my way for any of their desserts, pastries or coffee but I’ve definitely bought all of these out of convenience. Right on Main Street, I definitely prefer this bakery to the others.

Perfect location and very good coffee.
3 stars just for it!
Desserts are well presented but for my palate, completely testless.

Had a light lunch here. Daughter enjoyed her baked chicken sandwich which came with a small scoop of potato salad and a generous serving of cantalope. Soup of the day was a vegetable corn, it was OK but nothing special, however the individual size tomato/​cheese focaccia that I ate with my soup was great.
Clearly, their strength is baked goods. There is an extensive line of artisan breads and the dessert case… a beautiful cream/​fruit parfait cake, chocolate chip cookies bursting with chocolate chips, and many other goodies. We had a chocolate chip cookie and a croissant for dessert. What a treat — buttery, rich delicious. We ate on the small outdoor patio in front and there is plentiful seating in the indoor courtyard where there was live music (Sat afternoon).
I would give them a 5 Star except the service was brusque. It must be hard to find staff in HMB because this is a re-​occuring complaint if you look at other reviews. The counter staff are competent but the woman who served me was dismissive and just short of rude. A place like this would get higher ratings and be everyone’s favorite if the owner could get better /​nicer staff.

I dropped by this little bakery for an afternoon snack. This place is a bit confusing, none of the pastries are marked with what they are and how much they are. I had to ask the woman at the cashier to identify several pastries for me. We got two cups of coffee and some pastries and the total came out to be 23 dollars. When I looked at the receipt, it turns out a few of the items we purchased was almost 5 dollars. I did enjoy my hazelnut ring, but I think overall the pastries were overpriced and the staff was not friendly.

We got a vanilla cup cake, cinnamon crêpe, carrot cake and 2 waters for $ 14 and to be honest the 2 water was the best thing there.
The vanilla cupcake was overly dry and the frosting crumbled to pieces.
The cinnamon crêpe was nothing but just sugar and cinnamon.
The carrot cake did not taste like carrot cake at all. There was so much frosting and filling that all I can taste was the frosting and filling.
We ended up going to the bakery down the block to get a redemption carrot cake.

Plenty of bakeries selection.
I happen to get the not so good stuff. Le sigh.
I hope you have better luck than me.
Great location. Great parking in the street. Very close to the beach.

Absolute best baked goods I’ve had in awhile. I don’t usually eat or like sweets in general, crazy I know. However, I do make the exception if it happens to originate from this lovely neighborhood spot.
The workers are not all that friendly, but I guess that is the only bad thing to say about the bakery. I highly recommend the mini chocolate croissants, iced cookies, and fruit tart. There are tons of other yummy delicacies that I can’t remember the name of, but you really can’t go wrong here.

I simply love this place! It felt like some serious home cooking.
I enjoyed the Breakfast Burrito and it was soooooo Yummm Yummm Yummm to the Tum Tum Tum.
Friendly & quick staff, I even got a free laugh.
IF I EVER GO MISSING. LOOK FOR ME HEREEEEEEEEEE!

I like the fresh Peach Pie here, it’s so beautiful and delicious…
I look forward to buying another pie.
The service is a bit slow based on the supply (not a lot of workers) and demand (lots of customers) at times, and the breakfast took a long while (like close to 30 mins) to get a simple breakfast burrito. I guess if you live in a chill suburban area and have no place to be at any specific time it’s relaxing to wait, so not at all horrible. Aside from the wait time, which may be out of the control of their staffing and kitchen bandwidth, the service is friendly and accommodating.
They have lots of pastries, pies, cakes, cookies, danishes and deserts which makes this a place that gives you sugar sensory overload. You want to try everything, but can’t of course, so that just means coming back again to try different things.
Parking is easy in Half Moon Bay, and it’s about 20 – 30 minutes from the Urban civilization of San Mateo and San Francisco. HMB is a throwback town that makes you feel like you’re in a different region all together and maybe not even in the hustle and bustle of California.
The MAIN STREET strip runs several blocks with a few restaurants and lots of local boutique merchant retailers, so is a nice place to visit, stroll and shop.