Amphora Bakery

Today is my anniversary and we unthawed our top tier of our wedding cake from Amphora to eat. The cake and icing was perfect; however, it had pudding in it that went bad. I actually had to throw the cake out because the spoiled taste makes me think we would get sick from eating it. I wish the bakery would have told me not to put pudding in the top since I told them I was saving it for a year. We went over all of the details and the lady at the bakery helped us pick out all of the details, to include the pudding in the cake. I guess because having pudding in an extra layer cost more money, maybe that’s all she was looking at. The lady who we picked the cake out with even had us put a pudding layer on the bottom tier and I received a call from the bakery a few days before the wedding to say the cake would topple over if that was done since that wouldn’t be a strong base. I just don’t think the lady had any idea what she was telling us to do and I was really looking forward to today to have a disappointment :(
The cake and various cookies/​cupcakes/​macaroons, etc that I purchased on the wedding day were spectacular, by far the best I’ve had anywhere. I was really looking forward to the same thing today and I am just disappointed by the direction Amphora provide since it was a tradition I wanted to have and cherish.

This is one of the only diners that are open late in Herndon and sometimes the food is really good. We’ve had a few incidents where the food wasn’t that good but that maybe to due to the different chefs. Overall the food is good.

I honestly wish I could write more about Amphora but the truth is, a friend and I sat here around 5pm on a Tuesday and no one came to give us water or even say hello for about 7 minutes (the place was almost completely empty by the way) and then when a waiter finally did come by, he was very short with us, barely said anything, then sulked off to get our water. Strike uno.
The water must have come from the glaciers of Mars because it took an eternity just to get it. Strike dos. Keep in mind this place is still super dead. After we asked for another minute to decide, that’s when the best part came. I caught our waiter’s eye 3 times and he never once came back to check if we were ready. Eventually he just disappeared into the kitchen. Strike three (in Spanish). My friend and I got up and walked toward the door. Our waiter finally came out of the kitchen looking surprised and we told him we changed our minds.
Never coming back. I couldn’t justify a 25 – 30 minute visit just for water. Even if it was Martian glacial water.

Fiancé and I arrived in the area late at night and wanted a sit down meal, and this place was suggested by our hotel staff. Our server was excellent. The food was flavorful and large portioned.

I am a cake lover but the cakes here are just too bad to be mentioned as cakes. They are stale and hard. Avoid at all costs

Just picked up a Valentines cupcake for my granddaughter. One of the worst I have ever bought. Cost more than $ 4. The frosting was inedible. It left red stains on her hands which was not easily washed off and left a strong chemical aftertaste. She took one bite and refused any more.

I ordered a custom cake from Amphora, which cost over $ 300.00 to serve 50 people. When the cake arrived at the venue of my event, I was very surprised at the small size. I consulted the Banquet Manager and the Catering Director of my venue, both of whom thought the cake was too small to serve 50 people.
The Catering Director suggested I contact the bakery, which was less than a mile away, and request an additional cake to ensure there would be sufficient dessert for my guests.
I called and was told that the cake was standard for 50 people and if the personnel at the event venue thought it was too small, perhaps they were under new management and not familiar with the industry standard. The venue Catering Director contacted the Amphora manager on duty and when she did not receive any adjustment, contacted the owner and an additional cake was provided.
I was satisfied with the accommodation that was made and was prepared to let the situation go until two days later when I received an insulting email from the Director of Marketing and Customer Care advising that the cake was the appropriate size and telling me I should research cake size before ordering again.
They need not worry, I will never order from this bakery again.

I mean I was considering ordering cupcakes from this place for my friend’s birthday but NEVERMIND after reading these reviews. Thank you Unilocalers! For the record, someone on Google+ said they were offering gift cards for people to write good reviews. How awful and misleading :(

Amphora in Herndon screwed over my 17 year old, who saved up to get me a cake for my birthday. They told her they never received the order (by phone) but they could give her the cake the FOLLOWING Saturday. Woman was a ROYAL witch. NEVER again. Staff behind the counter has ZERO social skills and personality.

Reviewing the menu you quickly wonder how does this long established restaurant and bakery remain in business. It is clearly riding on its past reputation and not in touch with the reality its now substandard.
The menu is confusing and too many distractions. More like a wedding/​catering offering.
Pasta is found under the heading — Mediterranean. try and find simple dinners.
the Soup was over spicy and the salmon over cooked with under cooked vegetables both loaded with too much seasoning.
Chocolate cake (supposed to be house special) dry and not appreciated by any of my guests. two other desserts ok,
Overall, so so and the manager abrasive.

Check out this website and see the health code inspections on this place.

Rude customer service, really! Not only their cakes are overpriced, but the customer service was so rude. The staff was very unhelpful and made me feel unwelcomed as soon as I walked in.
The cakes quality could be better. I love cakes and pastries therefore, I’ve been to so many bakeries/​pastry shops. Amphora by far disappointed me the most.
Although I have to say the bakery setup was nice, the window lets you see the daily operation of the bakery, but that’s pretty much it. Unless you want to deal with a rude snobby employees and pay overprice for a piece of cake, try else where.

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.
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. 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 wasn’t happy. They didn’t respond. When I called them to follow up — they just ran around in circles. All they would say is that they don’t freeze their cakes and they don’t know what happened. My wedding planner, the hotel and event staff have spoken to Amphora and it’s 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 don’t even have a freezer big enough. I don’t 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 what’s 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 she’s concerned once they deliver the cake her job is done. I told her no it’s 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 I’ve 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 don’t care about their customer’s happiness.

I’m usually on Unilocal for two reasons:
Either I had the best experience with an establishment that I have to come here and rave about it OR if I had the worst experience of my life, I would be on here to write about it. Unfortunately with this place, it’s the latter. If I could take away that 1 star and had an option to give none, it’s more appropriate for what my sister and I went through this weekend for my niece’s birthday.
My sister was planning for her daughter’s 1^st birthday over the weekend and when my brother in law went over to Amphora to pick up the cake at noon (the party was hosted in the same shopping center as Amphora location), they simply told him the cake was never made. WHHHHOA?! WHAT!!! BACK UP FOR MOMENT, here. My sister ordered 2 tier cake with 12 cupcakes for this Saturday, paid $ 400 up front in FULL and you have NOTHING ready for us? The party started at 12:30 and they said they would make a cake and 12 cupcakes by 12:45. I’m not a much of a baker but you can make a fancy cake within an hour with decoration and all? The cake finally arrived by 1:15, it was nothing like what she had described and the cupcakes were complete mess! One of the cupcake wrapper was even different from the rest (11 were brown and 1 was white, what happened there, Amphora? Did you run out of a most simple and necessity supply??) What do you expect from a cake that was ready in less then an hour? I could’ve done a better job with Betty Crocker cake mix. You could just tell it was «half ass.» job.
Fast forward to today, when my sister spoke with the General Manager (you should be ashamed of yourself, if you are reading this), describing her what took place with the cake, her response was «you took the cake, you ate the cake». Well… because we had no other choice but to accept this ONLY cake that we paid $ 400 for!!! If she declined to accept the cake, would Amphora have given her back full refund? I don’t think so…
Adding insult to the injury, only thing she could offer was $ 35 GC.
How about a sincere apology and «let’s see what we could do to make it better for you?»
Hey Amphora, have you heard of customer service?
When she asked for her boss’s contact information, she simply replied «I can’t give that out to you.»
It’s suffice to say that I, along with other readers on here will not be giving you any business going forward, Amphora.

I always joke that San Diego would be perfect if my parent’s lived here and there was an Amphora’s…The strawberry cheesecake is worth every penny and if anyone you know loves strawberry cheesecake they need to try it here… It’s a tradition for my mom to call and rub it in my face that she is eating a slice… I just remind her that I got to see the ocean today so it all in all balances out… Visit Amphoras!

After admiring many of Amphora’s cakes online, I finally got to try one. I am pleased to report that the cakes are as delicious as they are beautiful. I was truly impressed, and I’m quite the cake snob.
Unlike other fancy cakes, this one was moist and delicious, even when served cold. The one I tried was called the «double mousse», which has layers of white cake, white chocolate mousse, chocolate cake, and chocolate mousse, enveloped in a thick coating of chocolate mousse. It might be the best birthday cake I’ve ever had. They’re also surprisingly affordable. I’ll definitely come back to Amphora for birthdays or any other occasion that could use a cake.

This is for the Amphora Bakery in Herndon off of Spring Street/​Sunrise Valley Drive — not the diner. During flu season, the tall blond woman who was waiting on customers sneezed right into her hands. She kept waiting on customers — getting cookies, handing people bags, giving cc receipts to sign — without washing her hands. BTW, tthere is a sink right behind the cash register — not two steps away from her.
I backed up so someone else would wait on me. I asked the young man who waited on me if it was their policy to wash their hands after sneezing right into them and he said of course. I told him what happened and he told me she was a manager. Good grief.

meh, I’ve experienced better. It’s you basics. It’s ²⁴⁄₇. It’s on the way home. Sometimes the staff is great, other times it’s something to be disired.
The pies and cakes are cooked somewhere in Herndon and delivered to the Amphora stores. It’s a great place and I consider it an open option always. A great place for tastey desserts.

Mmmmm pie. I’ve never had anything but pies from here and they’ve all been quite good. I’ve been in here and sometimes the selections seem limited, but I’m sure that depends on time of day and day of the week.
if you want a good solid no fail pie, this is definitely your go-​to

We got our wedding cake and grooms cake (my pic is the grooms cake from my wedding) and both were amazing! Their cakes taste as good as they look. They are moist and fabulous. Their frosting is a true butter cream with butter and sugar, no shortening here. They also use a fondant that is actually good. i usually hate fondant but their is pretty good, for fondant. The chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and raspberry is so very yummy! They also make one of the best carrot cakes I have eaten.
The bakery itself is a very cute spot for a pastry and coffee. I wish it was closer to where I live, but that would be dangerous!