Essencia Artisan Bakery & Chocolaterie

The family and I were driving up to Anacortes, and we stopped in Yakima for lunch. On a recommendation from our handy dandy Unilocal app, we stopped at this cute little restaurant, and this was definitely one of the best places we stopped at because of Unilocal.
I had their Evergreen Ham sandwich, and it was magical. Who knew pears, a blueberry vinaigrette, and ham would go so well together?! We also got the mushroom panini, which was tasty. The little siblings LOVED the Italian Cream sodas. After we eat lunch, we’ll definitely grab some desserts here.
If you are driving through, you should definitely stop here instead of going to the McDonalds drive through. It is worth it.

I Googled for a bakery in Yakima because I was just passing through. This is definitely a 5 star OMG café and bakery, and great find.
Besides a soup and sandwich, I got a cinnamon roll to take home with me. Before my lunch arrived, I snuck a bite, and promptly went back to buy the last roll before someone else got it!
This will go on my list of places to return to

Good food, bakery and coffee. All well prepared. Not enough inventory though. May be different on weekends. Nice place to stop for lunch.

Very cute little bakery. All of the baked goods looked delicious as well as their chocolates. They have sandwiches, soups and salads. They did t have a ton of variety of sandwiches which was my only complaint. Brownies were insanely delicious.

I stopped after seeing the reviews here. I tried the macaroons, they were so soft and delicious. I also had a delightful brownie, an iced green which was tasty and a sandwich (it was a while back cant remember which one ordered) everything was good. The service was fast and the atmosphere was very welcoming. Staff was very friendly.

The food here is so delicious. The bread is great too but someday a they don’t have any and some they do so that’s the only reason I deducted a star!

Good chocolate pastries. Not very much seating and they run out quickly. Coffee is good

A lovely place to grab a panini and an Italian soda and people watch. It’s pretty much the ONLY place in Yakima to buy fresh baked goods so grab what you can! The cookies are lovely.

Yummy, excellent breads, desserts and food. I recommend this restaurant/​bakery highly.

The prices are high and sometimes the bread can be a bit old but given the wasteland that is the Yakima food scene, nobody really does it any better around here. Try to stick to the options without meat as they tend to be better. Flavors are inventive (i had a pear and cardamom croissant), anything with chocolate is _​fantastic_​and they have the whole starbucks coffee selection.

Chocolate chip cookies and $ 2 free refills coffee! Great environment, nice employees, and plenty of seating. Curry carrot soup was excellent as well.

Oh my goodness, Essencia yes! I’ve been wanting to check this place out because of its reviews and on friends’ recommendations. My new favorite bakery in town.
The ham & cheese croissant is the perfect start to any morning. I came for the first time right when they opened at 6 am, so the pastries were just starting to come out of the oven. They are about $ 3 – 4 each, but I understand why! Homemade, delicious, creative, and generous proportions. I also enjoyed their house blend drip!
Does anyone know if Essencia has wifi? If so, this will be my new study spot. Certainly a great spot for coffee dates. I will be back the next time I need to pick up a birthday cake!

After hearing about this place for some time, we finally had a chance to come and try it out. With my two favorite dudes (my 2.5 year old and 10 month old) in tow, we stopped in for a late morning carb fest and were excited about what we found!
The choices, as mentioned elsewhere, were a bit limited, but gave us enough to choose from. The three of us shared a chocolate dipped orange cookie and a spicy cheese baguette with salmon. Both were excellent. The cookie was good enough in fact that little man ate the whole thing and not just the chocolate — a high compliment reserved for the top 3% of cookies.
The baguette was solid as well. Not overly complex, but good bread and nice salmon made for a nice treat on that sunny day in April! The coffee was standard– good not great, and the only thing keeping them from 5 stars was the overall dearth of a ton of pastry options. This is the sort of place I want to find a dozen things I love and come buy them for everyone at the office!
An absolute must for anyone in the area and a great spot for folks visiting.

I love visiting Essencia for an herbal tea and the relaxing atmosphere. As a vegan, I greatly appreciate that they usually have a vegan soup option for lunch. I would love to see more diversity in the lunch options like a nice mediterranean salad or a vegan sandwich. In addition, I would love to see a vegan baked treat like a cookie or cupcake. Overall, this is a nice local place to visit and stay awhile chatting with a friend or reading a book. I look forward to more visits and hopefully more options for the vegans of yakima!

I love this bakery. I got a chocolate ganache cake here last June for my husband’s birthday and it was heavenly. They have a lot of yummy bakery items and can customize it to your preference. They also have some great coffee. A true find in Yakima.

Bakery treats and bread, fun little place that smells heavenly. They also have a booth at the farmers market on Sunday.

I have to agree with DD, the main problem with this place is the lack of selection to chose from, which is ashame since the products they do have here is VERY good, and worth getting some treats here– they just need more stuff!

I love walking into the bakery, it smells so good and there is always a place to sit and enjoy your coffee and treat. They also have a strawberry spinach salad that is so fresh and delish! I ordered my birthday cake from them and it was so beautiful! Friendly and helpful staff make this bakery a true gem in Yakima

Stopped in here while driving through WA on our way back home. While their fresh crafted breads may be a hit, which to us they were, their soups and sandwiches need work.
I had the chicken and red pepper Panini and my wife had the soup-​of-​the-​day (split pea). Well, the soup looked more like a minestrone and, she said, tasted «different» for split pea. Definitely not the traditional version of the soup, but to each their own interpretation.
The sandwich, though was disappointing. While, again, the bread was fresh, hearty and delicious, the chicken was bland with BARELY any red peppers in the sandwich. And they used either a sharp cheddar or a processed American cheese as a binder — TOTALLY wrong choice as it rather overtook any flavor the sandwich would’ve had. And, the sandwich didn’t come with ANYthing on the plate! No chips? No pickle spear? No leaf lettuce? NOTHING! Just two half-​slices cut on the diagonal and plopped on the plate. C’mon folks! Have a little pride in what you’re serving!
Now, given all that, what bumps this back up to a 3-​star is the service. VERY friendly staff greet you when you come in, help you with the ordering process and get you seated to enjoy your lunch.
Yeah, it’s a quaint, little «kiche» place and I’m sure they have their loyal regulars each day. But, it’ll be a while before we’ll be back there and give them another try.

I can only base my review on the two things I had here… their coconut macaroon & their raspberry lemon tart! I came here and they were getting ready to close as it was 1:30 ish, and they close at 2 on Sunday’s. I was greeted by their workers and we loooked at the window. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much since they were about to close, but they had great things to choose from. Lots of brownies, scones, breads, and sweets. I settled for an amazing tart, and the macaroon.
the tart tasted so naturally lemon-​y. The crust was perfectly baked, hard, but also very soft and not too crumbly. The filling was not too sweet, but the perfect amount of raspberry that balanced the lemon.
The macaroon tasted like any other macaroon… it was good!
Overall, I like the place. I would love to come back and try their full on selection/​varieties. Very cozy, and pretty cheap.