J Nicolay Bakery

DOG FOOD review only: I ordered this online from pet box and my dog didn’t like the treats at all. He like the blue dog bakery treat in a head to head test. This was the 5^th time I attempted to give him the j nicolay treat. We placed peanut butter on the treat and he licked off the peanut butter but still did not eat the treat. Maybe it is the flavor but he did not like it and pet box wasted my points.

JNicolay is now a dog bakery online! I definitely miss the great food she had, but her dog treats are amazing! My dog has a crazy sensitive stomach and will have horrible issues with any dog treats, but she can have these and is fine! They are made with wholesome ingredients right here in redding! Check her out online at
The best!

Our favorite place for breakfast, lunch, or dessert in Redding.
Best chocolate chip cookies. Best lemon bars. Best brownies. Excellent pies when they have them. Everything tastes like it was made from scratch, which of course it was.
I usually order the fried egg sandwich and my wife often orders the Crossfit breakfast. Both are excellent. Chicken pot pie isn’t my thing, but I’ll have to admit it was very good as well.
The employees are always friendly and helpful.
Redding, home of the chain restaurant, needs more places like this.

Great sandwiches! Tried this for the first time and was very impressed. Fresh baked bread and quality ingredients. Turkey pesto was amazing the soups and salads looked great too! Now you can order from the new sports bar next door.

Always consistent with the quality of food and customer service! Try the Thai chicken bowl… it’s really good!

Don’t get the cookies! No I mean it… if you get the cookies you will break your mama’s heart because she will never live up to what they serve out of this place!

I was so happy to randomly find this treasure in Redding!
Their cookies, pastries, and desserts are delicious! We came about an hour before they closed to dine in. When we went to buy a cinnamon bun and the owners gave me a dozen cookies for free! So generous and so nice!
Their chicken pot pie is wonderful! Their sandwiches are great too. My one complaint was their menu was pretty hard to read. It’s up on the wall and spread out.

I have noticed their quality in food, and service drop recently. After they lost my holiday pie order and I had to drive down to Chico and get my pie from the Upper Crust, I have decided to no longer give this place any more chances.

Haven’t tried the food yet, but put in my order 30 mins ago and still haven’t gotten it. The wait time for a sandwich is ridiculous. Hope the food is worth the wait. $ 3.95 for a breakfast taco is a bit much too. Seemed to be a lot of regulars there, and they were much friendlier to them than me. I guess they don’t care about new business. Won’t be coming back anytime soon, based on the service alone.

First time in, for their 1 year anniversary. They were busy! And rightly so! Food is super good, staff is super friendly. I’m looking forward to coming back soon!

As a pre-qualifier…I am low maintenance. Pretty much anything I didnt have to cook is already loads better than it actually is. I watch Master Chef but I cant cook like the contestants and I dont expect a local bakery or restaurant to. It may be gross but I honestly could eat something after having dropped it on the floor. Years of eating wayward goldfish and mashed up child tossed banana will do that to a person. That said, ever wonder if its just you? It MUST be just me. I cant get a decent experience here. I WANTED to love this place. My good friend knows the owner and was so excited to take me. There have been multiple mishaps in my visits including rude service (which we received an apology for on a subsequent visit), inconsistency of both product availability and food quality, cold food and old food. But I MUST draw the line at bad fruit and undercooked bacon. We ordered two orders of the «Crossfit breakfast» today. Make no mistake… I DO NOT do Crossfit but the special is two eggs, two pieces of bacon, avocado and fresh fruit. Perfect for me and the mister. Also, it seems to be something you cant really mess up no?
What I got was cold (I mean like… ICE cold) eggs, undercooked bacon (grey and slimy and also cold) and fruit that was not fit for my chicken scraps… sour strawberries and out of 15 blueberries, 7.5 were edible whilst the other were rotting. In their defense, they were very accommodating and gave us a full refund (the staff, not the blueberries), though I did note the whispers and glances our direction by the people in the kitchen. What this morning crew doesn’t know is we have visited this bakery MANY times. We have had to return/​exchange food on a couple occasions… other times its been amazing. This is why we keep trying. Its like roulette. It might be the best food you’ve ever had but it might also be unfit for your dog. Why doesnt anybody just ask themselves if they would eat that? It seems to be the very best way to send out great food. «Would I eat this?» Its really not that hard. «Would. I. Eat. This?»
Next time I’ll order a darn scone. Forget the fancy eggy breakfast things. Forget the candied bacon anything. Just forget it all and order a scone.

lemon bars… check
cinnamon rolls… check
breakfast taco… check
want to try a house made bagel soon.
Like most bakery’s, the later you get there, the less the offerings will be.
Some reviewers complain they are out of their favorite, well when its
made every day, they will run out! Reasonably priced too.
That said, the interior of the place is piecemealed together. Its not just the very narrow room, I expected a bakery display case or something, I was greeted with clutter. I think the front needs to just be larger.
It was very busy and the ‘hard to watch’ unorganized kitchen, you know the kind
where people are walking around not knowing what they should be doing.
…
They somehow manage to churn out some of the good stuff,
check out the breakfast or lunches too…

This bakery never has everything ready! A friend recommended the cinnamon rolls. On 3 different days and times, they weren’t ready but, if I waited, I could finally get one.
I love scones, but the bacon and cheese used the same sweet recipe as the fruit. Yuk!
And the coffee station was dirty.

I don’t know about you, but I love the idea of going to a quaint neighborhood bakery instead of buying stale mass-​produced crap from the grocery store. I heard about this new bakery from my stepsister’s boyfriend; his sister is the «J» in J. Nicolay. Further adding to my desire to try it was the location (very close proximity to my house, so a quick jaunt). Whilst watching this mornings’ additions to my Hulu Queue, I decided I was famished and realized I was finally in the correct time window to visit the bakery (several failed attempts preceded this visit).
The décor inside was very welcoming. The order window is open to the kitchen and you can see all sorts of baking enchantment going on, including the hugest mixing paddle I have ever seen covered in frosting. There are tables with day-​old markdowns of scones and muffins, shelves with fresh loaves of bread and apothecary jars full of huge cookies, a blackboard with the menu written on it in colored chalk, and Julia Child quotes on the wall (My favorite: Everything in moderation — including moderation). I ordered the bleu cheese and cracked pepper stuffed bagel, a raspberry scone and a chocolate chip scone. I did not go day-​old because I live alone and wanted them to keep one day longer, but I needn’t have worried because after my (INCREDIBLE!) bagel, I immediately scarfed down the raspberry scone and sealed the chocolate chip scone in a Ziploc (and if you know me at all, you know I am NEVER this diligent with food storage — I throw away more rotten and stale food out of laziness than most people buy in a month). The bagel was delicious, with the filling subtly infusing the flavor into the bagel rather than relying on big wads of cheese for flavor. The scone was crumbly but moist, very fresh and pleasing. I will definitely be eating here more often, and buying bread from them instead of Safeway. Sorry Sara Lee, I’d rather go local.

Yikes! Found a new addiction!
If you get a cookie craving, come to this place, they know how to bake a REALLY good, FAT, yummy cookie! I haven’t eaten lunch there yet, but judging by the absolute chaos in that place at 12:50, and the delicious looking stuff blowing by while I stood in line, I can safely say I will be back to sample more than the amazing baked goods.
Five stars, hands down, great service, a nice menu selection… and a great way to get rid of a baked good craving… if by getting RID of it, you mean going back for MORE because it is so tasy! :)

Love this place! Their chicken pot pies are so delicious! The muffins are pretty good too. Next time I will have to try the stuffed bagels because I heard they were pretty good. They are pretty inexpensive as well. Definitely want to come here weekly for a pot pie!

My mom and I visited here for lunch after reading some great Unilocal reviews. We are big bakery fans (The Uppercrust in Chico is to die for). I had the chicken salad sandwich which was on fresh homemade bread and a cup of the chili. My mom had the quiche and tomato bisque soup. The sandwich was good (wish it had some lettuce), the quiche was too «eggy» for me I prefer a little more fluffy quiche.
We got two stuffed bagels for the next morning and those were so flavorful, my husband loved the ham and cheese and the sun dried tomato feta.
I would really recommend this place, her cakes looked really yummy as did the scones. We sampled a cookie that was very moist and flavorful. The service was great and the ladies were all very helpful. I only took points off for the quiche and I hope they get a display case instead of having everything on trays.
YUMMY, Can’t wait to go back!!!

Wow! What terrific pastries! Sooo glad my fellow Unilocalers directed me here! A special Unilocal-​out to Kim H., without whose comments about ordering platters for work I might have taken longer to be convinced.
Needed platter of variety of breakfast pastries for early morning business meeting today. Janelle is all about customer satisfaction. She worked closely with me to design a platter that appealed to the participants at the meeting.
The platter was wrapped and waiting for me when I arrived this morning. She had already called me this morning to verify exactly what I wanted. All of the items were still warm and stayed that way for the start of the meeting.
Every item is over-​sized. The scones are enormous, and they are overshadowed by those incredible stuffed bagels. I sure wish that I could tell you how wonderful those stuffed bagels were — but they were GONE from the platter by the time I got to it! I have never seen bagels stuffed like that before.
I did manage to steal one half of an iced cinnamon roll. It was perfect. Really.
Janelle is totally devoted to customer service, with an efficient operation, fantastic 5-​star baked goods, and personality. I am so pleased to have a new and proven catering resource in Redding!

If you’re on some sort of paleo diet, like me, and you’re not supposed to eat foods made from grains, you’re screwed. Screwed in half.
Redding has a new bakery, and the goods are, as they say in Latin America, magnificus and esculentus. The owner apprenticed at the late ReneJoule Patisserie in downtown Redding, whose owners threw in the towel because bakers, it turns out, have to get up at 3:00 am in the goddamned dark to be at the bakery at 4:00 am, and it sucks out loud when you have little kids. But anyway, we ran into the former owner-​dude of ReneJoule at the new Wildcard Brewery a few days back, and he pointed us toward this new bakery in town. He was exuberant about it, like a proud daddy. Or like the guy who really wanted to bang the cute apprentice back in the day. (I don’t want to get my man in trouble, but it’s understandable that at some atavistic or not-​so-​atavistic level, he might have wanted to dip his spoon.)
For the most part, I’m still going to be able to turn up my nose at grain-​based products (excluding beer) until I drop another 20 pounds, with one likely exception: I may have to hit up J Nicolay once every other week or so and treat myself to her chicken pot pie for lunch. Because, Jesus Christ. Jesus Herbert Christ in a sidecar. Damn.
Meanwhile, I’m just going to deal with the stuffed bagels by averting my gaze and not going there. Haven’t had one yet, and don’t plan to for now. I’ll just stuff my ears with beeswax and ignore the siren’s song of the stuffed bagels while I sit there, lashed to the mast, eating my chicken pot pie.
Oh, and we ordered a chocolate bourbon pecan pie to pick up on Christmas Eve for Christmas dinner in Sacramento. If we eat the thing in the car on the drive south, that shit happens, you know?

4 words– Bacon Chocolate Stuffed Bagel.
Finally Redding has a bakery that I love. The stuffed bagels are delish and so is the quiche. They also serve yummy soups, salads, sandwiches, and pies.
The owner and her staff go above and beyond with prompt and bubbly service making it a great experience.
There is seating to dine in and the whole place has a clean, modern, appealing look and feel.
I will be coming back again and again.