Maria Italian Bakery

Never freaking coming here again. I ordered a cake for my mothers bday early in the week and when I came to pick it up on Saturday. They didn’t have my order. Then they said they found it and told me to wait. I waited over an hour for this goddam cake and they didn’t even apologize for the delay. Not even an acknowledgement that they had made a mistake! Needless to say. Never coming here again.

Fanastic! I bake and am a difficult critic. I was taught by an Italian grandma. Everything I have tried was delish! Yummy cookies, canolis, everything. Old school, but in a great way!

Pastries are good and price is ok. I tried to order a wedding cake from them. Went in and explained what i wanted. They said they couldnt do a 3 tier cake for 80 people. Only 2 tier. Waited for 2 weeks for a response about the delivery charge. First they said they’d get back to me. After another week of waiting i decided to call them. The delivery guy was on vacation so they would call me back. They never got back to me so i went with another bakery. The baker helped me right then and would design the cake to be 3 tier and deliver. I felt like Maria’s didnt want my business. Money was no option as it was for my daughter’s wedding. Pastries are delicious but customer service is unprofessional

I recently went into Maria’s bakery. I had received some baked goods from there and they were delicious! (strufoli and Easter bread). When I looked it up on Unilocal,it had many negative reviews about the help. i can tell you that has existed in the past perhaps. The girl that waited on me was very friendly, gave me information about some of the cookies, etc. i told her that I had read the reviews; she said they have a new group of help and from what I saw it was great! I again bought the strufoli, some delicious Italian bread, fig cookies, chocolate hazelnut meringue cookies that were awesome and a very delicious cheese Danish. Everything was so good. The store is immaculate and from what I could see as I looked into the kitchen, so was the kitchen. I also caught a glimpse of a youthful, attractive Maria who must work very hard to keep things that way. There is also no problem with parking. The store is in a strip mall and when we went there were plenty of spots. All in all it was a very positive, tasty experience.

Having cannoli hand filled and holding the cream bag with a gloved hand yet holding cannoli with bare hands. Only here. God forbid you get cream on your hands. And the owner is standing watching this. The girl in the front tried to give me attitude while I was getting the cake but I ignored it. Italians in Italy are not like that. Perhaps girls in this bakery should go to the motherland to learn quality of service snd how to speak with their customers.

As I said on Google, you don’t have to be British to love a custard tart, and the vanilla tarts here are the best I’ve ever had. Tiramisu was first rate. Off hours best but bread sells out fast. Maria is Sicilian I’ve been told and a master baker she is!

This use to be my favorite bakery! Napolians were stale the last few times and so were the jelly cookies and the sprinkle cookies! So sad! Maria get back on the ball! At least give your customers fresh bakery items and a friendly experience for the $$ I’m hoping it returns to the excellent bakery it once was!

First and last people unfriendly. When asked what certain things were the girl helping me acted annoyed that I was asking questions.
They all seem to need an attitude adjustment.

The cannollis r good but nothing spectacular that will make me come back or recommend them. the girls are soooooo unfriendly. Find a better staff if you want to stay open for business. I agree. Maybe it’s a minority thing. Not a smile or a hello.
They are sweeping when there’s still open pastries on the shelves… eww

Place is a bit old school and a bit tough to find from people’s directions
I got a mix of different goodies and found them to be already stale and hard. Not what you look forward to when getting something good
Any of the cheesecake based items or cakes you’ll be fine. They tend to last long without staling.
They offer some bread but from the luck I had with the place I wouldn’t recommend it.
Only plus I can give them is they are open on Mondays. And that’s about it. And if you’re pinched on getting something sweet fast.
Just don’t look forward to fresh.

They have a large cannoli with the baby ones inside which I have to say is very nice. I ordered one for the holidays and went to pick it up. They were so unorganized when I got there. No one knew what they were doing and when I finally got to the counter to tell the girl I was here to pick up my order, she went in the back and came out and told me I was early and that it will be ready at the time you said you would pick up…(I was 10 minutes early!) She was so NASTY! I waited the 10 minutes and some other girl brought my order out but I will NEVER step foot in that place again. They should add some sweetness to their help because they were the worst!

I wish they were nicer. Every time me and my family go here we are never welcomed or smiled at. I don’t know why. We are always polite and kind to them, but I feel they discriminate towards minorities. It’s a shame because I could have brought them a lot of customers since I have a huge family. Anyway, these girls need to tone down the attitude and be sweet instead of their noses in the air and they don’t even say THANK YOU! The owner or manager must train the staff up to par.
Thank you!

I’ve just moved to the area and my family owns a bakery so I am a little biased in my review but the first thing I must comment on is the service. I’ve been in here 3 times and the girls who work the front are the most unfriendly bunch I have ever witnessed. They don’t crack a smile, no greeting when you walk in and make you feel as if you are a total inconvenience.
I’ve tried a few items from Maria. Their lobster tails are amazing and enough to bring me back. So crispy and flaky with a generous amount of cream. I got one filled with French cream so yummy. Their cookies and bread are standard and I ordered a cake here which was also pretty good as well. The cake was fresh with light tasting whip cream icing. I did ask for fresh strawberries mixed with the cream filling and it was an up charge-​fine by me but I feel they were a bit skimpy on the fresh fruit. I’ll definitely brave the odd and unfriendly service for a treat on a Sunday morning again.

STAY AWAY — you’re better off going to Shoprite. I ordered a full sheet cake for a party I was having — let’s just say I was EXTREMELY EMBARRASSED by the way it came out. it was nothing like Maria (the owner) and I discussed.
Also, Maria has terrible customer service skills — it took 4 phone calls to get some of my money back (she gave excuse after excuse as to why she couldn’t talk on the phone). Finally I said enough of your excuses I’m coming to get my money. I will never trust or step foot in Maria’s bakery again.

Alright, so I needed a bakery to go to and heard about Maria’s Italian Bakery in Saddle Brook. To be honest, I heard mixed reviews about them but still decided to give them a try. First things first, their little parking lot is a nightmare to enter, especially if you’re driving there and you need to make a left to enter it.
If there’s no traffic, you can cut across the yellow lines and enter the parking lot from there, where there’s an entrance and exit section. But if there’s traffic, and you happen to turn where you’re suppose to and allowed to turn, forget about it! I ended up turning into the car wash entrance and had to make a quick left in front of the car wash place. All the Amigos outside drying off cars were like Heyyyy!!! Basically like, why didn’t I enter the other way? I’ll tell you why… Cause traffic was a nightmare, and I didn’t want to be that jerk that’s holding up traffic behind me, waiting for me to make a left over yellow lines. I roll down my window and was like what’s the problem? Automatically, it’s not a problem anymore.
Anyways, so I find parking and enter. The place is nice, it’s not overly done, it’s not old school, and most importantly, it’s not falling apart. There were a few young girls working there, and the one who was helping me smiled and seemed willing to assist me… even though she had the hiccups. LOL
I’ve never been there before, so make sure you ask questions. They have a lot of pastries, and just when I thought I was seeing the same pastries twice, I was informed some have different fillings. Overall, it was a pleasant experience. The lobster tails were good, but too crispy for my taste. It almost felt a little to hard to chew at times, but it did it’s job. Thanks again, hope to see you soon.

This Bakery produces fabulous authentic Italian desserts (their Rice Balls-«Orancini“are magnificent also) that will not disappoint anyone. Just to name a few things– The Cannoli cream is perfect, the special order birthday cake (with whipped cream icing) is the best I’ve had, their Homeade Italian cookies took me back to childhood and the Pastry will add pure delight to the end of any meal (and of course In between meals LOL). The owners and staff are very friendly. Don’t miss anything this bakery produces and share the Love with others!

Their pastries/​cookies — delicious, their staff — could use some work.
Being that It’s one of the only «Italian» bakery’s left in the area I do come here often. Their stuff is pretty decent and well priced. Their butter cookies are standard cookies, that you could probably buy at shop rite, but their almond cookies are delicious and their pastries (they have both large and small) are delicious as well. You can tell that their stuff is fresh, there is always someone working in the bake shop.
Their staff, Oy, I don’t know where to start. The girls who work there, are all high school teenagers or college students, they ALWAYS look miserable! Never smile and always look like we are inconveniencing them by being there. Also, they wear gloves to get your pastries and cookies, which is great, but then when they ring you in and handle money they don’t take the gloves off and in fact use the hand with the glove on to handle the money! Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the glove?

Being Italian, I get bored with 85% of Italian baked goods.
Sugar cookies with different colored sprinkles are still sugar cookies and syrupy sweet fruit does not taste as good as fresh fruit on a tart.
BUT…there is a little creature called a cartocci, is it a donut? a cruler? NO. It is what you get when drunk cannoli mate with doughnuts in a bed of crystal sugar (not powdered!). Maria only makes these lovely bombs on Weekends. The dough part is light and doughy, pulls apart almost like a croissant; the crème is thick and rich, maybe even thicker than cannoli crème. So awesome, I really don’t know why, but I dream about these things. They do it very well here.
I came here while I was getting my car washed (next door) I finished it before my car exited the wash.
So, My feeling is that Italian baked goods (aside from bread) should be enjoyed on weekends, because it seems that’s when the real stuff comes out to play.

Maria’s does what a lot of italian bakeries do – they make an excessive amount of the same cookies with different colored sprinkles that sit in a case for way too long getting stale. Sure, they look pretty — but that’s about as far as they go in my book.

I have driven by Maria’s Italian Bakery numerous times and I was sitting in the parking lot looking at their storefront while my husband went in and picked our dog up from the groomers next door. It was Saturday evening before Easter Sunday and I couldn’t help noticing the steady stream of customers, all who looked like they could be extras in an episode of The Sopranos. My evil, sugar addicted brain was starting to plot.
As soon as my husband returned with the dog I asked him to go in and purchase 2 Lobster tails. He returned with Lobster tails, a Napolean and some cookies.
The Italian meringue cookies were fabulous! Vanilla and chocolate meringue chock full of toasted hazelnuts.
The lobster tails were freshly made and had a delicate, crispy outer shells… the filling was a little bland. Napolean was very, very good!
I would definitely give Maria’s another try to sample some other Italian treats