The Prolific Oven

Less-​than-​thrilled. I’ve had The Prolific Oven bookmarked for a long time. We came for lunch, so I ordered lunch food and ended up with the Pilgrim’s Delight sandwich (turkey, cranberry sauce, cream cheese). It was so bland — a major disappointment for a sandwich that, on paper, sounded like it would be a flavour bomb.
3 stars as a place-​holder. I would like to come back for brunch and/​or pastries (not the cake I got).

I have been to the store for more than 10 years. The cake is good — provided they give you a fresh cake. I ordered a cake for my son’s birthday — I specifically requested the cake after 11:30 am to make sure that the cake was made the same day in the morning — and I told the girl when I ordered the cake that I wanted the cake to be made on the same day.
I have tried the fresh cakes from the store and I know how it tastes. The same for my kids — they know how the cake tastes when they are fresh. In the past, there were several instances when the cakes were not fresh. And this time, the cake was not fresh — it was hard. The cake must be more than 2 days. Now, the cake is sitting in the fridge — because it was hard and nobody likes it. In the past, when this happened, the experience will stop me from coming in the store for a while. This time, I won’t be back for a long while.

3 ½* Prolific Oven
Palo Alto
Funky atmosphere
Great place to order cakes
Pastries with a coffee drink make for a good breakfast
Friendly staff

Love it here! Not only do they have great cookies and baked sweets— but great sandwiches as well! And the location is fantastic! Really love the overall vibe of the place!

I hadn’t been to the prolific oven in almost a decade, but I still remembered their tasty cakes. I decided to pick one up for my anniversary, and call them that morning to see if they could write «happy anniversary» on one of the small chocolate cakes. I was a little worried since it was last minute that it wouldn’t be possible but it was no problem at all. They told me I could come pick up the cake that afternoon. The cake was just as delicious as I remembered, moist and chocolaty! I will say it doesn’t seem like they’ve updated the café in the last decade, it looked exactly how I remembered it. It could probably use a little facelift.

I have to say I was really worried about these guys in the beginning and I can’t vouch for the handoff at the venue because my team of rockstar vendors took over that part for me.
That said I can vouch for the following:
–Their pricing was fair, especially for the quality of the cake
–The cake was a showstopper, every person at the wedding was in love, came back for seconds, and some even made a point to eat cake with us the rest of the week. I don’t say this lightly by it was mind-​blowing (especially at the price point). It was good at the cake tasting but insane at the wedding and beyond.
We will be back for our anniversaries for the small cake experience to relive the perfection of our wedding day!

i met up with a girlfriend for lunch on a weekday and it wasn’t too crowded. quite a few tables were still available at this semi-​self service café. you place your order at the counter, they give you a number, you get your water & utensils, pick a table, and wait until they bring your food.
the wait wasn’t too bad, just a few minutes, but that is what i’d expect for a cold sandwich. i did not know that each of the sandwich platters came with a piece of cake! i’m unsure whether they serve the same piece of cake everyday or change it up, but i’d be curious to know since they have so many fabulous cakes! chocolate cake, cheesecake, rum cake, tiramisu, princess cake, carrot cake… omg, my taste buds are salivating just writing this list! on that particular day, the cake of the day was carrot — moist and full of carrots and walnuts… oh, and sugar of course!
food was decent, and priced accordingly for downtown palo alto. the restrooms are in the rear of the café, so you have to walk thru the kitchen, which felt a little weird, and hang a left to the unisex bathroom. if you prefer to sit outside, there are a few small tables for 2 just outside the front door.
tip: during lunchtime, parking can be challenging, so allow extra time to possibly circle around, looking for parking. most of the street & lot parking is limited to 2 hours between 8am-​5pm on the weekdays so keep an eye on your watch!

This is definitely our go-​to spot for birthday cakes. They have a great selection, and do a good job decorating the cake after purchase.
There are many other options for cafes in the neighborhood, and these days it’s tough to beat the competition on coffee, or ambiance, or people-​watching. But who cares? The bakery is great!

nice and quiet coffee shop to relax and work. It also nice place to get some cake or cookie for snack.

Fantastic cakes! I bought my friend an 8″ chocolate rum cake for her birthday, and it ended up being way bigger than I thought. Even so, six of us were ALMOST able to finish it, it was that good. I particularly like that they sell cake bites in each of their most popular cake varieties, the chocolate rum, chocolate mocha, and chocolate on chocolate. All of them are really decadent and delicious, you really can’t go wrong with the cakes here. Production is efficient as well, I ordered my cake at 8:00 pm on a Thursday and it was ready for me to pick up at noon the next day. Overall just a really positive experience and no-​hassle option for anyone looking to pick up a cake for any occasion.

SO, I had some almond cake left over from yesterday and I couldn’t believe how moist the cake was! It was pretty darn delicious. I guess the sadness from not having a yummy peanut butter cookie took over my tastebuds, haha. Because of how great it still tasted ONE DAY LATER, I will bump my review up to four stars. GIVE THE ALMOND CAKE A TRY!
I AM IN SEARCH FOR SOME GREAT PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES IN PALO ALTO. My co-​worker and I love peanut butter cookies and for some reason, CANNOT FIND A BAKERY THAT SELLS PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES. I’m going to be honest, I haven’t tried that hard to find these cookies, but still! So heres my story, I was walking to my car as I passed this bakery and decided to see if they had any peanut butter cookies. LO AND BEHOLD, they did! As I looked at their selection of pastries, there were many cakes, a couple of cookies and some danishes. I did visit at 4 in the afternoon so I am sure that they probably sold most of their other treats. I purchased not only my long sought after peanut butter cookie but also a piece of almond cake. The slice of cake was priced at $ 5.50 a slice and the cookie was probably $ 1.50−2.00 range as my total came out to be $ 8.45. I took a bite of the cookie the second I paid for it, in front of the cashier with NO SHAME. It was meh. I let my boyfriend try it and the first thing he said was «IS THIS ONE OF THOSE GULTEN FREE PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES,» so it was lacking flavor. Needless to say, I had better peanut butter cookies. I also thought the almond cake was alright as well. It was tasty but I didn’t think it was the world’s BEST almond cake ever. I probably would go back to try other things such as their sammies or other pastries but for now, I guess my search for PB cookies continues!

3.5 stars for free cake! I don’t really care for cake tbh, and the coolest thing about this joint is their excellent name. Still, the sandwiches are solid enough and DTPA (do people call it that?) is sort of starved for good sandos. May Ike’s save us all.

People from all ages collect in this old school bakery. They have amazing sweets and treats bake on site. Everything is so fresh! Never had a bad dessert or lunch from here. Also the sandwiches come with a free slice of cake. Did you hear me, FREE CAKE! How could I complain about that.
One of the last authentic shops left in PA.

I must say I only chose this café over the 97 others I saw while whimsically strolling around the yuppy-​saturated streets of Palo Alto because of the name, which is pretty damn good.
The place has an old-​world vibe; cherry stained wooden chairs and ceiling fans relaxing on low compliment the small, white hex tile floor pattern. There was a nice blend of people when I strolled in around 1 p.m. on a Wednesday — children smearing cake on their face, elder folk enjoying a cup of coffee and sandwich, developers burrowing into their Mac books over a Diet Coke. There’s also a few large tables to sit at outside, and due to its location being slightly off the main drag, the people watching is stimulating without becoming distracting or overwhelming.
I ordered a Chipotle Honey Chicken Sandwich, which was more of a chicken salad sandwich, and with more honey than chipotle. It tasted great. And instead of a salad accompanying my sandwich, they served cake – how cool?! Lemon cake. It was delectable. My only complaint would be on presentation: the sandwich menu behind the counter has tiny lettering. I was wearing contacts and still couldn’t read the ingredients in each item without being directly in front of the menu at the counter. Of course, this is only problematic if there’s a line, as you can’t really wait in the line and look at the sandwiches at the same time. Oh first world problems. They also only have 12 and 20 oz coffees to go, which I thought was odd, but I ordered in, so it didn’t affect me. All the coffee choices were organic, fair trade and pleasant.
I would definitely come back to this place again due to its atmosphere, diverse crowd and above average food.

Visited this place today for the first time. I loved the ambiance and design of the place. You quickly notice it’s a family business and the owners are busy working and paying attention to the customers, I liked that!
The French toast was fantastic! We also had a Breakfast Sandwich, hash-​browns and se over-​easy eggs and those were all very good,
They can improve on the training of the cashier who needs to know better the menu and products to be able to recommend or explain the items to new costumers.

This has to be my favorite bakery. The chocolate cake is amazing. Today I had the German Chocolate cake and it was outstanding. I really like everything here. Great fruit tarts and wonderful morning cheese pastries.
I wish they still had their San Mateo location. But its definitely worth the drive. Most cakes I have bought from other places are either not sweet enough or mildly chocolate. Rubicon makes a weird chocolate cake that i have tried.
I also like the fact that they sell slices of every cake and you get a nice slice from a real round cake. A lot of places make sheet cakes and force to to buy a slice of this, Draegers in San Mateo being an example of cakery debauchery.

It was a huge slice, and the prices are good. I personally think the décor is fine. However, I do not see what the fuss is about this rum cake. It’s pretty ordinary frosting, and on my slice at least, the cake was pretty dry. Nothing at all to write home about.

C4. Pilgrim’s Delight (turkey breast, cranberry sauce, cream cheese, green leaf and tomatoes on baguette. $ 7.50) — 3 stars
pic:
Not their best sandwich, though they have others that are much better. The baguette was kind of hard/​stale, the meat like store-​bought cold-​cuts. I thought the cream cheese and cranberry would be a fun Thanksgiving throw-​back combo, but there was way too much cream cheese and the cranberry was too sweet. It all just didn’t work well in a sandwich the way good Thanksgiving leftovers would.

We wanted something sweet after our pretty clean and somewhat bland dinner over at Oren’s Hummus Shop. So we decided to walk over to a bakery that actually had full slices of cake. Since we’re both not cupcake people.
I went ahead and got the Swedish Princess Cake after seeing a beautiful foodporn pic another Unilocaler posted on their Unilocal page. It’s basically a thin orange sponge cake that’s sprinkled with Orange Curaçao and layered with a vanilla custard, raspberry jam and some whipped cream. It’s covered with marzipan and decorated with a pretty ribbon.
I can tell you that although the presentation was off the charts… the flavor and taste was MEH. Bland just like my darn dinner. What a bummer! I did however get a little bite of the bf’s chocolate rum cake and that tasted WAY better!
This is one of those places I’ll keep on my «Last Dessert Resort» list.

This place has an awesome name. In case you didn’t realize. I wish it looked more epic from the outside, but their cakes definitely make the case.
We came in on a mission — it was National Chocolate Cake Day, and of course, we had to celebrate accordingly. Unilocal hails their chocolate rum cake as something that is close to godliness, so that was on our radar for sure!
For $ 5, we received a massive slice of the glorious thing that was more than enough for 2 people. The rum is in the cream cheese icing, which is all kinds of delicious, and the cake is super light and fluffy, with tons of chocolate flavor.
We didn’t order anything else, but all the cakes looked just as delicious, and there was an awesome variety. Definitely a go-​to neighborhood bakery for all your birthday and celebratory cake needs!