Kirschbaum’s Bakery

Overpriced and I ordered a chocolate cake with buttercream frosting to take to a party. Imagine my dismay when I cut into the cake and discovered it was a spice cake which was dry and not particularly tasty. It sat on the table uneaten.

This is my childhood bakery. Everything here is delicious. Hands down the best eclairs I’ve ever had anywhere! Other things items you’re going to want to try: cake donuts with chocolate frosting, apple slices, the very best kolackys, lemon cake, and you must get the sprinkle cookies for the kids.

The first Thanksgiving I met my boyfriend’s family, I impressed them with my skill of picking out damn good rolls. and so a tradition began. Every family event, I bring rolls. I choose a different bakery and try to impress some of my toughest Irish critics.
This year I went with Kirschbaum’s. They are cute and local. We had ordered Paczki’s from there a few years ago that boyfriend’s family loved so this seemed like a must win.
Kirschbaum’s has a fantastic website. I was able to not only order my rolls beforehand but also pay in advance. This was a very nice touch! I like being able to order ahead and pay in advance so that I can send someone to pick up my order. This is especially beneficial for parents sending their kids or someone ordering from the bakery who doesn’t live in the area but wanting someone who lives there to pick it up for them.
In this situation, the website told me that they were open until 6 pm on Wednesdays. I ordered my rolls well in advance and presumed that they were going to be open until 6 that day. I noted on my order that it would be picked up at 4:45 pm. At 4:10 pm, I received an email from the bakery telling me they would be closing at 4 and would only be able to stay about 15 more minutes. At first, I was furious when I saw this 20 minutes later. My boyfriend left to pick up the rolls. What if there was traffic? We aren’t going to have rolls! I received a follow-​up email within a minute of my seeing the initial email that said she could not wait later than 4:45. I tried to call the bakery to no avail. Fortunately, my boyfriend got there and they were waiting for him with the rolls already to go. It was fantastic that they noticed my pick-​up time at the last minute and ended up staying the extra 40 minutes for him to pick up the rolls.
The rolls were fantastic! But the standout of the experience is the customer service and that amazing website.

I stopped by here with my kids and the staff was ultra friendly. Even offered free cookies to my little kids, which was very nice of them. I purchased a couple of donuts from an assorted variety and also their famous cinnamon coffee cake, very delicious!

I love their coffee cake! I’ll usually get the cheese and raspberry coffee cake and they’re amazing! Donuts are big and tasty too! Paczki also amazing when they’re available!

Bakery is closed all day on Monday!
They want me to post more. I just want to inform people some very important information without details about how good the bakery is.

Omg hello coffee cake. If you can somehow figure out how to let me eat it everyday and not get fat, I promise I will! :)

The moment you walk in the door, it’s like going back in time complete with an amazing aroma of fresh-​baked goods. Kirschbaum’s is a charming bakery with solid baked goods. Locals love the place, and I’m definitely a fan!

My coworker brought in doughnuts from here… they were pretty good. I had a coconut, chocolate, and plain glazed one. They weren’t out of this world amazing but a lot better than your average DD’s!

Boring & common recipes. Uninterested staff, dumpy worn out store.
I tried a variety of items for a business meeting I hosted in the area including raspberry coffee cake, a cheese coffee cake, chocolate eclairs, a dozen assorted sweet rolls and cookies. What a mistake. All very basic recipes of marginal quality. Bland tasting and cheap.
This place is living on its «nostalgia», and lack of competition, not high quality baked goods and engaging staff, don’t bother.
I got better at Jewel.

A friend and I walked into Kirschbaum’s for some treats and stood there for a few minutes awkwardly. The people behind the counter also stood their awkwardly. They didn’t greet us nor ask us what we wanted. The strange thing was when some guy walked in after us, they did greet him & ask how they could help. Errrrr, okay.
I looked through the cases and asked a few questions. They weren’t sure what some of the goodies were or what was in them. I took my chances and ordered 3 different cool looking treats. I had their brownie and a couple of little tarts and found them to be a bit expensive. They were all okay and I can’t hate on the treats too much but nothing that I had was fantastic. I think the lackadaisical & simply not caring service left a sour taste in my mouth but I will not be back.

I have never had a bad or mediocre thing from this bakery. We just had a fabulous atomic tort from there for a birthday. It was one of the best cakes I have ever had and the price was right (7″ cake for under $ 20). The cookies, coffee cakes, apple slices, etc. are all delicious! Try it. You’ll love it.

My husband’s favorite childhood bakery and I can see why. Yummy bakery items, especially the mini eclairs!

I felt it was only fair that I re-​review Kirschbaum’s post wedding since my pre-​wedding claims were quite bold. My 5-​star rating? Solid as ever.
Now, I wasn’t a very good future-​wife. We planned our Chicago-​suburb wedding long distance from Kansas City and when I happened to be in town without the groom, I went ahead and just ordered the cake. Upon hearing this, he was bummed. I TRIED to explain how awesome Kirschbaum’s is and to just trust me. but he really just wanted free sample cake. I mean, after all, isn’t cake tasting the only fun part of wedding planning? Well, okay. I did rob him of that joy, so the next time we were in town I went in and bought these little mini cakes and just told him they were sample cakes. They were good. They were really good, but holy lordy, they paled in comparison to our real cake on the day of. I was a bit nervous that the cake wouldn’t be as good as their normal cakes simply because it was going to be so big. I expected a «small four tier» cake to not taste as great as a round cake in the way that your handwriting is so nice and neat on the first thank you note, but looks like a 1^st grader’s on the 100^th. False. When we cut into our cake, it was so good! We wanted to stand up there for an hour while everyone watched us just eat the cake, but we managed to pry ourselves away. So did I eat a lot of cake, you ask? NO! I will attach the photo of my lovely groom eating my piece of cake when I was trapped on the dance floor during the dad/​daughter dance. Thank you, photographer for the evidence. BUSTED. Our top layer was saved, but the cake that was to serve 125 — 150 was entirely eaten by 127. That is what happen when you get good cake… people actually eat it!
We also got our favors from Kirschbaum’s. They are semi-​famous for their smiley face cookies so I ordered 75 green smiley face and 75 that had a P+C instead of a smiley face. For an extra $ 0.25 they will also individually wrap them and tie them with a ribbon. WORTH the price instead of doing all that tedious work. The favors were a big hit too. We placed them on a table for people to take as they left and we managed to snag the last 2.
The ordering process was easy as well and very low-​hassle. I wasn’t picky about what I wanted the cake to look like so I brought in a few photos of what I liked, they showed me what they had done before and I just picked one and changed the colors. Easy. The cookies were a little more difficult, but could have been very easy. I wanted to know if they could do a penguin cookie. I brought in a few images and the workers took them, said they would ask Penny Kirschbaum if she could make them and then get back with me. It did take a long time for Penny to get back to me, but once she did we decided on smiley face and P+C design instead, I was able to pay by Paypal from Kansas City and then I never had to deal with it again. They delivered as promised and the cake didn’t even have to be refrigerated which can be a problem at some reception venues.

Tip #1: Prepare for a wait on the weekend. It’s full of burbies (of which I am… albeit a transplant) waiting for their baked goods. And they are not open on Sunday. A bakery. Not open on Sunday. Must be a Jesus thing. And until recently, they didn’t take credit cards or ATM cards. But that has been fixed.
I’ve tried just about everything. The good: The italian butter cookies, the smiley face cookies and move of the bread. The bad: any of their chocolate cake. They put some kind of spice in there that makes it taste funky to me. And I think it’s kind of dry. Stick to vanilla. The amazing: The Butter or Cinnamon coffee cakes. Don’t ask how long one lasts in our house. It’s ain’t pretty. Also, the cake pops, minus the chocolate. Heaven on a stick.
You can’t go wrong here but prepare for a wait on Saturdays. Had a chocolate cake from here and wasn’t impressed. Mainly because of the funky flavor but that could just be me.

I’m new to the world of crazy busy bakeries… Went early on a Saturday and there was barely standing room. I heard a lady comment «as long as there isn’t a line out the door, I’m ok to wait.» Wowsers! So, *don’t forget to grab a number as you come in*– that’s how they will call you to take your order. That’s nice because then you can walk around and see what they have without loosing your spot, or people glaring that you are cutting.
Like so many places in the suburbs, the place was run by teenage girls. However, they are super helpful, energetic, pretty quick, knowledgeable, etc.
They have quite a large selection of breads, but if you want it sliced, there is only 1 size. (i wanted to make cucumber sandwiches, so i wanted it very thin). They had a ton of different tea cookies, and are clearly the place to go if you want to order a party cake. But I being that I wanted some sweet stuff, I was a little bummed by the not overly huge selection of sweet goey stuff. (Ok, but there were still pecan rolls, donuts, cinnamon rolls, strudel things, etc)
Can’t wait to go back and try the coffee cake!

Picked up a chocolate chip cheese cake for Easter and it was simply amazing! It had a somewhat dense texture and the chocolate chips made it even better!
They now take credit/​debit cards on $ 10+ orders.

The retro sign caught my eye as I rode the Metra downtown almost every day during college. So, when I was planning a wedding, Kirschbaum’s came to mind.
This place smells heavenly! The cookies are relatively inexpensive and appeared popular among patrons.
I called ahead to schedule a tasting. I was informed that they don’t do tastings, but we could come in for a free (free!) sample cake. However, the cake was plain white cake with buttercream frosting. With no other options, how could I determine if I wanted Kirschbaum’s for my wedding? Anyway, we took the cake home and ate it. It was good. I’m not a cake person (I’ll take ice cream over cake any day), so it was good enough. Nobody eats the cake at a wedding, right?
I went back to Kirschbaum’s to place an order. Suddenly I wondered if I was in a bakery or someone’s kitchen with the limited options. The outdated cake stands in the window, and no sample book of cakes, should’ve tipped me off that wedding cakes aren’t their forte.
I was told the cake had to be round. And buttercream. I was fine with that, and I showed them a picture. I asked if I could have 2 fillings, which confused the employee. I wanted raspberry and I wanted lemon. I ended up with a quote for a 2-​tier cake and a sheet cake. The 2-​tier cake would have both fillings, but the sheet cake only 1. Yeah, because I want a non-​uniform cake. The cost for a wedding cake to feed 175 people was just under $ 300. Compared to other bakeries I shopped, it was a deal, so I didn’t care about the specifics. Then I was asked the most RIDICULOUS question of my life:
«Who is going to pick it up?» All I could say was, «WHAT?» and she explained that they do not deliver. Not even to my venue, which was 10 minutes away off of a major highway. I said I’d let her know, and I took the quote with me. Well, at least she was friendly and pleasant to work with.
I ended up getting exactly what I wanted size/​shape/​flavor-​wise at another bakery in the ‘burbs for the same price.
Kirschbaum’s should remove the wedding cakes from their windows and not advertise this service at all.

If this review was just for Penny Kirschbaum, I’d give 5 stars. She has great customer service! Alas, there are other factors in play here.
I was recommended to Kirschbaum’s for wedding cake by a friend. They have low prices because they only do white cake, no fillings, and a sugary white buttercream frosting. A little too sugary for my taste, but that’s me, and doesn’t affect the rating.
First, it was hard to get a call back from my cake inquiry. I left a message through their website with multiple questions. They only answered one question, ignored my others, and when I tried to call, couldn’t get a hold of anyone. I guess they don’t have call waiting? Because I’d get busy signals for over an hour. When I could get someone to answer the phone, they didn’t sound very happy, and would shout to the others in the store asking if there was anyone who could answer wedding cake questions. They weren’t much better in person. The website also says big and bold that if you’re picking up a cake order, you still have to wait in line — not sure how I feel about that so big on the site — I guess if your customers didn’t learn to wait in line in kindegarten like most people, that’s necessary?
Anyways, we were still going to go with Kirschbaum’s for wedding cake because of the price. And Penny really is nice. But our wedding is on a Sunday, and this bakery is closed Sundays and Mondays — and they don’t do deliveries on days the store is closed. So if your wedding is on a Sunday or Monday, you’ll have to find someone to pick up your cake on Saturday, find someone’s house to store it that doesn’t have pets or children (or just pray that it doesn’t get accidentally destroyed), and then find someone to take it to your wedding for you. That’s way too much risk for me to take on when we’re paying so much for a cake. But if your wedding’s any other day, they can deliver for a small charge.
Also — they don’t take credit cards. They take cash or checks. Checks are much more risky for a business to accept. And I don’t know many people who carry cash, let alone a checkbook. There’s also a big sign on the front door that says they don’t take credit cards. If I was just in the area and saw that sign walking by, it would look like a Don’t Come In sign to me.
Regardless, if they could deliver on a Sunday, they’d have my business. As it is, one star gone for not delivering Sun/​Mon, and one star for the lack of customer service from the other girls in the shop.

I have been eating baked goods from Kirschbaum’s for 25+ years but today is the first time I have visited the bakery. My sister should own part of the place by now as she has been serving birthday cakes and St. Patrick’s day cookies from here on a yearly basis.
Today’s Adventure Friday included a trip here and it was so old school — like a trip back to my youth. They only take cash and the clerk was crabby, again like the bakeries of my youth.
I had their molasses cookie which was quite flavorful and a selection of the tea cookies — even got admonished for the way I was ordering them. That made me laugh.
Great old school Bakery and if you come here around 2:00 on a Friday, no line and plenty of parking. Score!