Calumet Bakery

Had a red velvet cake from Calumet Bakery for my birthday. It was very bland, and the frosting had the taste and consistency of cool whip. I couldn’t taste any cream cheese in it whatsoever. Very disappointing. If you don’t mind a drive, I recommend Crown Bakery in Crown Point. Much higher quality baked goods, at a better price.

A nice quality bakery. My family have been patrons forever. I have gotten birthday cakes, office doughnuts, cookies and even my wedding cake from Calumet and have very rarely been disappointed. Moist satisfying baked goods at a reasonable price.
I have only had 2 items that i did not care for: kolacky and paczki. I have had them multiple times, and are they gross? No. But they aren’t good either. The kolacky is pale and dry. And one of my biggest pet peeves as a Polish girl are bakeries that cut their paczki to fill them, it’s lazy and no longer a paczki. Now it’s some weird jelly sandwich. It’s a bakery, I’m sure there’s an extra pastry bag and tip floating around to do it the right way. None for me thanks.
That being said, I still buy up their cakes and pastries like it’s my last meal and will continue to do so.

Lemon cake, pecan pie — Absolutely Devine! Knowledgeable and friend staff

Over the years my family and I have given Calumet Bakery a lot of business. There have been issues in the past that I’ve overlooked. For example, I ordered custom cookies for my son’s birthday in October, and when I arrived to pick them up, (an hour after my pick up time), they still weren’t ready. Someone dropped the ball, so they scrambled in the back to frost the cookies. To further exacerbate my aggravation, I was informed that they were unable to package the cookies as stated, per the order, because the frosting still had to dry. Ultimately, the manager was apologetic, they provided me with the supplies to package them at home & she offered a discount. Although I wasn’t entirely pleased with the debacle, I appreciated her efforts to reconcile the situation & was satisfied. However, my encounter today took the cake (no pun). The young woman assisting me in ordering carry-​out baked goods was extremely disrespectful & blatantly rude. She had the nerve to literally roll her eyes to my face as if I was inconveniencing her. After tolerating her poor attitude for a couple minutes, I did address her ignorance. She replied with the most disingenuous, «I’m sorry.» After multiple negative experiences, I’ve decided that I’ll spend my money at a bakery that leaves a sweeter taste in my mouth.

No other bakery will do!!! They help us celebrate all the special times in our lives.

The bakery items are excellent, but as a first time customer, I was dismayed at the service. The young woman behind the counter seemed annoyed. No smile, questioned my order in a condescending way (she actually said that some people get confused).
I might go back to this location, as anyone can have a bad day.

I picked up a cake today for my brothers baby shower. The writing on it looked terrible and the baby’s name was spelt wrong. Apparently there’s «nothing they can do about it» (exact quote from manager named Melissa) because I already left the store. I will never order a cake that needs to be decorated from here again. I have always loved the taste of everything that I have gotten from here but this experience really left a bad taste in my mouth. Customer service obviously isn’t a priority for this bakery. Looks like I’ll have to check out the new bakery in town. I wish I could post pictures in this review…

Calumet Bakery is extremely overrated. Throughout the years, they have gotten progressively worse and unreasonably overpriced. I have ordered several cakes and cupcakes from them, and the cake is just o.k. They use too much icing/​filling and it overpowers the cake-​which is just substandard. I think they stay busy because they accept Link and they do actually have pretty designs.
My biggest issue with this company is they never respond to e-​mails and the manager never returns calls, as promised. I work with a small school in the area and we contacted the bakery for 25 cupcakes to be donated for graduation. In exchange, the school would receive free advertisements. The owner never responded to our repeated phone calls nor e-​mails. How rude! We are some of the very community members that helped build this business. What a way to treat the community you serve!
Just a few weeks ago, I went in to order cake push-​pops. I tried ordering via e-​mail, but again, I got no response. I was told the bakery didn’t have the supplies, but I could go purchase my own. I was quoted 3 different prices — finally ended up paying $ 2.00 per push pop. I had to pay $ 15.00 for the supplies. The push-​pops were cute – but really overpriced, considering I had to purchase my own supplies. I could have gone somewhere else, but they were close and we needed them. This is probably the reason why most people shop here. No quality, no customer service – just convenient.

Let’s start with the positives: the cake and tiered cupcakes was very attractive in appearance. The cake was also delivered on time to my parents 40^th anniversary party. Thank you Calumet Bakery!
Now the not so positives: went in for a cake tasting and met with a young lady who spoke at length about the design of the cake in conjunction with how much we wanted to spend. Our cake tasting was to last an hour. We spent 45 minutes on design. During this time we did not have any cake. We sampled cake in the last ten minutes, which made us hurry the tasting part. I will admit we were 10 minutes late to the tasting, so maybe this is what went wrong but I felt like we should have been tasting cake while discussing the cake. If we had done this simultaneously it would have put us more at ease.
The assistants in the bakery really seem to like their work but they are often confused. Beware if you need to make multiple payments to really keep up with your receipts and original contract. It’s as if they hired a lot of enthusiastic teenagers and young adults but really did not train them to do their job well. If you call in to make a payment in regards to your order they have an antiquated system of looking in a book by date. It is not computerized therefore when you call to make a payment plan to be on the phone for at least 15 minutes.
I called in several times to make a payment and they told me I owed more than I did because the original young lady who processed our order indicated we made a $ 50 deposit when indeed we made an $ 100 deposit.
The ugly: if it’s not in writing it’s not real. They told us that to rent the cake stand would be $ 75 dollars and upon return of the cake stand we would receive $ 70 back. This did not happen… apparently $ 60 was written on the receipt but $ 70 was agreed upon. The cake and 1 tier of cake and 100 cupcakes cost about $ 300. It was pretty to look at but it was not very tasty. To say I was disappointed is the understatement of the year. After the party my parents tried to be nice by taking the top tier home to share and told us how lovely the cake was. Later, my mom admitted to throwing it away and asking me why we just didn’t get a cake from SAMs Club or Jewel. (Because according to her it would have been better)
Honestly, I think they have great «front door service.» I would definitely walk in and purchase a baked good… but as with the other Unilocalers here, something is definitely going awry in the cake department.
I’m giving them 3 stars because I really do believe they are trying… but they honestly deserve less.

This Bakery is great if you don’t order anything. My friend who is seven months preggers came in to order her baby shower cake. We showed a picture of what she wanted and was told they could not do that. Fondant cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. We showed another picture of a bandana and was told again they could not draw that. Two more pictures and two more denials. We settled on a slight variation of the bandana motif around the edge.
We went in to take some additional props to be added and was told by the manager they could definitely do what we wanted originally. That they have drawn harder scenes than the one we wanted. Then the day of the party came and we went to pick up the cake.
IT WAS UGLY. The bandana motif was haphazardly drawn all over the top of the cake. It looked like someone was just learning cake decorating and practiced on our cake. The color scheme was wrong there was no blue for a baby boy as we requested, it was black. When she looked like she was about to cry I asked what could be done the asher brought out the decorators and they suggested coloring over the black with blue. That may it look somewhat better but for the $ 130 we were paying it wasn’t right. They said that it would take an hour to re-​ice the cake and because we had to get to church (it was Sunday after all) we didn’t have time to wait.
We got a discount of $ 80 because the cashier could tell my friend was still very unhappy. When I got home I called back and spoke with the owner. He had me bring in the cake and re-​iced it and delivered it to our venue in the city. That was helpful but we didn’t get what we really wanted. That was very disappointing. The hassle was not worth the effort. The cake was good but we will never be back.

What a nostaligic classic atmosphere walking into this bakery. The ambiance is pleasant and cultural with all the heavenly aromas of the bakery goods. I’m taken in by the yummy treats there you just want to eat everything in there hmmmmm yummy.

THIS is a bakery! Great value for the dollar. Cake slices are huge and affordable.
Cake is amazing and not over sugary. Some places you can crunch the sugar and this is not one of those places. Quality ingredients are apparent. And their rolls are melt in your mouth yummy!!! Oh. and don’t forget the eclairs!

I was called on the day of my wedding and told they wouldn’t be able to make my wedding cake the way I ordered it and they asked if I could come in that night to discuss changes. When I reminded them that it was my wedding night, they gasped realizing they forgot that it was my wedding day. I tried many times to call back to ask for something in exchange, but no one would answer. I ended up having my bridesmaids go to the grocery store to pick up a cake. Yep, I had a «Happy Birthday» cake at my wedding. I did get my money back the following morning, but I would of rather had a cake on my wedding.

Delicious pastries and cakes! We ordered a sheet cake and a smash cake for our sons first birthday, and both were delicious and very pretty. Had a little trouble with one of the girls behind the counter while placing our cake/​smash cake order (she was very unwilling to work with me on the design I wanted and didn’t put the color down correctly), BUT I called and spoke with another worker, and she assured me they could do exactly what I wanted. She was right! Both cakes were moist and yummy and looked exactly how I wanted them to! We will be using them for many years to come if they continue to make such great desserts.

A friend of mine, who is from this area, swears by the goodies at this bakery so while in town visiting with her we stopped in. I am not much of a sweets person but I gave the maple bacon donut bar a try. It was fabulous. This bakery has a lot to choose from. I am told the cookies, cakes and other freshly baked goods are phenomenal. If I am ever in this area again I will definitely stop in.

I love Calumet bakery! Their cakes and doughnuts are always fresh and they also do a great job customizing cakes for any occasion! The Friendly staff makes this bakery even better!

They did an amazing job on my wedding cake! The most amazing part was the price. Incredibly low. I did have one small problem — my vintage Beatles cake toppers were placed incorrectly on my groom’s cake, which unfortunately I didn’t notice until AFTER my wedding reception was over. I also come here for any last-​minute birthday cakes for friends or family — they always have freshly baked, delicious cakes ready to go!

Kerry and his team did a fabulous job on getting my wife a 40^th birthday cake in a timely manner. People from Frankfort absolutely loved the cake with the chocolate covered strawberry’s. I will be special ordering many other cakes from them in the near future.

Sinning has never been so sweet.
I literally cannot go back because I will gain 20 pounds from this place. It’s all so damn delicious that I can’t help myself. And it’s all so affordable which makes this place even more dangerous.
My family has lived in this area for 8 years, and somehow I’ve just discovered this treasure trove of deliciousness.
I know I said I wouldn’t ever I back, but thinking of that moist croissant… Maybe I could go again… Just this once.

Baby showers – any type of shower, really – aren’t my thing. At all. No, really. At all. If I can’t skip a shower, I ensure that my wine glass remains perpetually full. Least I can always toast the honored guest, right? Right!
Excellent tactic. Until it was my own baby shower. Now *I’m* the honored guest and, given the whole ever-​looming specter of fetal alcohol syndrome, I can’t even raise a glass for my own sanity. What’s a girl to do?
You find solace in cake, of course.
Now, my family doesn’t tend towards fancy bakery cakes. I usually make my own and my mom loves her some cake Jewel/​Stracks/​etc. But if I was going to make it through my own baby shower I needed cake. Good cake. Red velvet cake. The problem? I am a red velvet cake snob. Seriously so. I take personal insult to a dry piece of red velvet cake. Yeah, I have issues.
In any case, driven by fear of bad red velvet cake and third trimester hormones, my mother hit up Calumet Bakery in hopes of appeasing the tumultuous cake shrew that is her daughter. Simple sheet cake. Simple decoration. Just good cake and non-​greasy icing.
Calumet Bakery hit it out of the freaking park.
Red Velvet Win!
The cake was moist and the frosting was creamy. Layers upon layers of red velvet perfection. Our guests couldn’t stop raving – or eating. The few remaining slices were just as amazing the next day. No dried out cake here. Just memories of some of the best red velvet cake I have ever tasted.
Well done, Calumet Bakery. I can’t wait to stop by and sample your other wares. Oh, and I am counting down the days until my husband’s birthday. You see, he also loves red velvet cake and I just happen to know this place…