CLOSED: Bleeding Heart Bakery

I went to BHB a few times years ago when it first opened. Back then, I thought the vegan baked goods were basically tasteless. But I kept going back b/c I wanted to support the place. I tried the sandwiches. Just terrible. They were prepared by an employee who seemed like he was making them for the first time and didn't know what he was doing. I finally gave up on the place. The vegan baked goods at Fritz Pastry are way better.

Warning: we only tried cookies and cupcakes. Still, we were impressed and wanted more! If only they were open on Mondays! This place is not 100% vegan, or even, as another review pointed out, 80% vegan. It is probably 20-30% vegan, if even. There were some muffins/ teacakes that would've been great, but they were sold out! Clearly a popular choice. Nice that the option is there!

Other options included cake balls, cookies, cookie bars and cupcakes. The bars didn't appeal to me at all, the cake balls looked interesting, and I would certainly try them next chance I have. The chocolate chip cookies in the bakery were all vegan, so everyone who wanted a traditional ccc needed to buy vegan! That was cool. And, they were awesome. The most traditional version of a vegan ccc ever, and it tasted among the best traditional style ccc's I can imagine. Most vegan ccc's are boring, dry, crumbly and wholly lacking in flavor. These were exploding in everything a traditionalist could hope for: flavor, chocolate, and that firm but chewy texture that vegan cookies lack. Nice job!!

The vegan cupcakes all had chocolate bases today, but there were 4 different frostings. They were not separating. The cupcakes were not dry. In fact, 3 days later, they were still very moist and satisfying. Again, these tasted very traditional and would fool any non-vegan! I liked the classic decor of the plastic clown/ spider, harking back to grade school memories of bakery cupcakes that vegans can't ever eat. They were the best traditional vegan cupcakes I've ever had!

In terms of cupcakes, they give VT a run for their money. I would pick BHB cupcakes and cookies over VT cupcakes and cookies any day, hands down. That's pretty serious props, as I LOVE VT (brownies and cheesecake, carrot cake... cannot be beat anywhere by any other bakery).

Definitely go here, you will be impressed with the options and flavors.

I'd first like to note that BHB is not 80% vegan, I used to go here weekly and the vegan options were never plentiful. Over the past year their food quality and customer service has deteriorated, to the point were I stopped going every weekend. I've included an update to a review I wrote a few months back on an alternate site:

As I stated before, BHB was part of my weekly routine. I stopped going for months because of constant disappointments (1) dry and tasteless baked goods, (2) unfriendly staff, and (3) change of ingredients (for the worse) on a favorite item.

So the owner responded to my review (which she later deleted) and agreed that the new raspberry jam was really bad and that they would soon be switching back to the old jam. Well it took me a few months to finally go back, but I did finally decide to go back and give them another try. As the owner said, they did switch back to the old jam (which is good) but the bar was very dry and tasteless. When I asked to exchange it for a new one, the lady behind the counter was not too friendly about it.

I also ordered a vegan donut to go, it was so-so. I almost ordered a cupcake, but I noticed that the frosting was separating when I looked at it on the counter (not too appealing). Overall the food coupled with the sub-par customer service has turned me off yet again. I'm actually embarrassed because I brought a friend in to introduce her to BHB since I did have good experiences (less the bad service) here in the past... I'm not putting BHB off for good, I'm just taking another break from them and may go back (to a different location) someday.