Big City Small World Bakery

Big City Small World Bakery in Ann Arbor offers a charming small-town feel. I ordered some of their cupcakes and they are some of the cutest I've ever seen. Check them out!

Decided to pop in and grab some baked goods. Ended up getting a couple scones, cookies, cupcakes, and tarts. Very expensive for the quality and quantity that you get... $40 for a dozen is ridiculous when you actually look at what you're getting. Scones and cookies were dry and stale, and the cookies were super thin and broke apart as we took a bite. The cupcake was super dense and had a very weird flavour for something as simple as vanilla... Not a fan of the flavour of the baked goods there. Heard they're known for ding dongs but didn't end up grabbing one, as it was $5 for a tiny one-bite ding dong. Just an expensive bakery with below average baked goods. Would not recommend or come back.

Service was great, the eating area is quite cramped. The lemon bar was okay, macarons great, but the chocolate cake slice insanely dry.

My favorite local coffee shop. Very friendly service and they even have dog biscuits! I would also recommend their pasties and the ding dongs.

Absolutely loved this place. Friendly service, amazing treats. Definitely hitting them up every time I’m in town from now on.

This is the secret summer hang. Shhh. Don’t tell nobody… delicious in-house baked offerings, Guernsey Ice Cream. Friendly staff. Great music.

Very small corner bakery that also serves ice cream. The service is always friendly. Most of the baked goods are pretty good. Parking is hard to navigate, though.

Went in to get 2 gender reveal cupcakes, which the manager told me previously we could do. Drove a hour from my place to go to this bakery. Daphne was working and said they can’t do that, i said I was told they can and asked if anyone else was working, which they replied that 3 other people were working. I asked to speak to another worker, got ignored 3 times and the 4th time asking, they said no one is working. I’m confused why they are working at a bakery if they can’t put frosting in a cupcake and blatantly lies for no reason. After being ignored the 2nd time, I started recording on the low and will totally send it to their manager if he wants to see the horrible “service” Daphne provides customers.

It was the first time we ordered the paczkis though it was the other side of town. It's good to support Ann Arbor businesses where service is top notch. The Paczkis are not made in-house but had the right amount of filling and the dough was heavy as all paczkis are supposed to be.

We were looking for a vegan bakery and stumbled across this one. The building is cute but the baked goods looked like a church bake sale. Everything was wrapped in Saran Wrap with hand written pricing. Prices were ridiculous. Half of a GF whoopie pie was $5. So if you bought 2 halves to make a whole one it would be $10? Insane! The cream was good but the chocolate part was like dry, unsweetened sand. The vegan chocolate chip was $5 and was dry and bland. 2 half whoopie pies and a cookie for $15. If they were amazing, maybe. But they were not.

I'm a discriminating cherry pie lover. The one my wife an daughter brought home from Big City last week was terrific. It had a lot of just-right cherry flavor. Nice crust. And to top it off, the store is a charming, friendly place.

Delicious Baked Goods!!! I especially love the muffins, pies, and ding dongs (mocha, raspberry, and gluten free options). Scott is the best.

Tucked a few blocks west of Main Street is this lovely little neighborhood bakery filled with delicious sweets like cookies, cakes, tarts, scones and muffins, and more! Thirsty? They've also got drinks like beverages like coffee, tea, chai, limeade and cocoa. Don't miss their scratch made ding-dongs. The best! Oh, and there's also vegan and gluten free options in the rotation!

So cute and love the wide selection. Breakfast burritos are different than the usual and delicious

What a gem! Everything we had (chicken pastie, gingerbread cookie, organic banana, ice cream and coffee) was delicious and the shop was full of beautiful, fresh cakes, pies, baked goods, pasties (beef, chicken and vegetarian) all made from scratch with real, whole ingredients! I appreciated that they had a gluten free portion of their bakery menu and the kids already want to come back for cake or a cupcake. Another regular let us know that these were the best pasties in the state! My husband and one year old agreed and ours quickly vanished into their bellies.

Some of the best coffee I've had in Ann Arbor and the friendliest service! The coffee they use is specific to the store and is hard to find elsewhere, definitely come here if you want a smooth and rich flavored coffee. Their baked goods are also top notch!

After our local gluten free bakery closed, I was on the hunt for another and found Big City Small World Bakery. We ordered a gluten free quarter sheet cake in chocolate with chocolate ganache icing. Our entire party agreed: you couldn't tell it was gluten free, the chocolate flavor was absolutely delicious, and it was hands down the best cake we've ever had. Period. The price was very reasonable too. I drove over an hour to pick up this cake and it was 100% worth it -- and we can't wait to order again! On a side note, I sampled some of the delicious baked goods in store. The date and nut dream bars are fantastic! Not overly sweet since they rely mostly on the figs for sweetness and a touch of savory due to the nuts.

This cozy bakery served up lovely made from scratch pastries, sandwiches, pies and local coffee. It's more of a grab and go spot due to limited seating. The owner is super nice and a u of alum!

Brought my 2 year old here for birthday hot cocoa and muffins (some of his favorite things) and the owner was SO KIND. He gave my son a little cutie orange for his birthday, made sure the cocoa was a good temperature for the little guy, and was just so sweet and welcoming. This is the cutest bakery and we absolutely loved the vibe. There are tables outside where we enjoyed our hot cocoa, muffin and scones and it was just a really really pleasant experience. We will be back!

This place is extremely cute! The drinks are always great and they have sooo many vegan options (most of which aren't labeled so you have to ask) which is so amazing!! I love the ding dongs, and the mousse bar/cake thing. The cakes look amazing and I'm definitely going to try one soon! My only qualm is with the baked goods that sit out behind the counter (without any kind of covering). These items are consistently dry / stale tasting, no matter what the item is. I've tried the donuts, cinnamon rolls, and carrot muffins from this open-air spread and literally everything tastes dried out. The cinnamon roll is always, always stale and tastes like Saran Wrap/plastic (I've tried it like 3-4 times because I kept hoping it would be better the next time), it's also sometimes cold which tells me they aren't fresh at all and are instead kept in the fridge overnight (which taking baked goods in and out of the fridge would certainly dry them out). The carrot muffin is also always hard on the outside and crumbly/falling apart on the inside (again, tried multiple times hoping it was a fluke). They also have vegan whoopie pies which are sometimes really good but sometimes cold/hard as rocks, and sometimes taste like plastic/Saran wrap (they are wrapped in Saran in the display). So, I stopped getting them because the flavor and quality was so inconsistent. It seems like the items in the refrigerated display are fresh and good consistently (like the ding dongs and cake items), but the items sitting out, open, without covering (for who knows how long), aren't cafe/restaurant quality in my opinion. I love this place and still go regularly anyway because it's cute and the drinks (and select baked items) are fantastic, and like I said, it seems like a great place to get a cake or pie. But, stay clear of those uncovered baked goods behind the counter! Hopefully, they will consider a new system for storing these items at some point.

Funky, eclectic building, really thought I'd love this. Inside, overwhealmed by the prices, $2 for a cookie, $4 for pretty much anything else. The round eclaire was calling my name, but not at $4 for a tiny round bite. I didn't want to leave without buying anything so I chose 2 cookies when my husband pointed out a discount rack in the back. So I told him nevermind with the cookies and got a cinnamon roll, a cherry chocolate chip muffin and a raspberry cream cheese muffin at $1.50 each. Good deal I thought. Trying them at home, it was all the worst I've ever had! Cinnamon roll, stale, no flavor, no gooey frosting, no cinnamon just old yeast. Muffin had maybe 2 chocolate chips and one cherry, also old and stale. Raspberry the same deal, thought the cream cheese would help out here, nope no luck. No need to stop here, way overpriced and no flavor.

I've been coming here since it opened. I always forget that I am always disappointed. One would think that I'd remember this. Their ding dongs are very good but they are 1/2 the size they used to be. Many things in A2 are expensive but this is in the top 1 percentile of being overpriced. This makes Zingerman's look budget. We got a handful of ding dongs and some very very stale butter tarts that filled a 1/4 of a brown lunch sack for...$52. Insane! It'd be one thing if it was outstanding. This was anything but. Ann Arborites are suckers. Absolute suckers. All you need to do is be purposefully quirky, hyper local,have one item that is good and build the rest of your business around mediocrity. The staff is as unpersonable as I've met. Rude. Only in Ann Arbor can you have a business that has rude staff, poor food and exorbitant prices and still survive. In fact it seems to be a local business model.

order like five butter tarts and thank me later. (i've never felt a need to buy anything else here, although i'm sure it's great too!)

We stopped in at 3pm on a Wednesday. The workers were very friendly and fast. We got an eclaire, a raspberry ding dong, sugar cookies, a Canadian tart, and a cherry turnover. $21. Cookies were so dry and crumbly that my partner said, "did they confuse dessert with desert?" And the rest of the choices just lacked either flavor, texture or both. I was surprised, because we got a variety so I expected at least one to be good. I offered them to my mother in law, who almost never turns down sugar, and she was not impressed. Overall would not return.

I really wanted to love this place as I like to support local shops. However, the cake I got was very dry and the "buttercream" tasted terrible . It was congealed and hard and tasted just like butter with no sugar or other flavors. I even had let it sit at room temp for a few hours but that didn't help. The only good part was the strawberry filling in the middle layer. It was frustrating because I chose to purchase the smaller, $35 cake instead of a larger, $27 cake at Whole Foods (that everyone loves) because I wanted to support this business! I hope that the rest of the baked goods are better because the cake was confusingly bad.

This charming neighborhood bakery has it all-- the friendliest staff, delicious made-from-scratch goods, coffee, and ice cream. The orange ginger scone is one of the best scones I've ever tasted, and for a decadent delicacy, the ding dongs never disappoint. They also have plenty of gluten-free options. I really can't recommend it enough!

The friendliest little bakery in town!!! The staff always is extremely kind and helpful and the baked goods are so tasty. I really love pastries and they have many different types to choose from. They also have sheet pizza that you can grab a slice or two of and it's full of flavor. My favorite thing to buy is the Canadian butter tart. It's a small (two bite) sized tart with a sticky and sweet, buttery filling. It's like a tiny pecan pie without pecans It's the only place I've ever had one and I can't leave without grabbing at least one. Also a big fan of the cranberry muffins and cookies. They also make dog treats, so it can be fun to show up with something special for the dogs! If you're in downtown Ann Arbor, you can't be far from the bakery... Check them out

Alright pastries and coffee but a stunning location. Cherry turnover was unfortunately a let down. Loved the outdoor seating and neighborhood. With a better quality bakery this place would get a 5/5. :)

Limeade is the equivalent of lemonade, but made with limes. If you're going to sell cucumber water with a lime squeezed into it, fine- don't call that limeaide. You know what limeaide is. Stop labeling it as limeaide if it isn't.

Little bakery with rows of scones, muffins, and cakes. The inside has a quaint and friendly vibe. There is a sign outside in Tamil, and coming from the part of the world where the language spoken, it made me happy.

Excellent place to pick up your yearly paczki. They were fresh and they have the more traditional polish flavors like rose hip and prune.

Oh whoa! So, I knew that sooner or later I would end up giving the vegan ding dongs here a try. Today a totally sweet friend bought me one for my birthday. Before my first bite, I stared hard at the treat, hoping that I could somehow will the vegan version to taste just as good as the non-vegan. And you know what? It DID! For real. I've often said that I could never go vegan, but if for some reason I had to, those vegan ding dongs would make it a whooole lot easier. The vibe here is comfy, but for me, it's usually a better grab-and-go place since there's not much seating. As long at that doesn't bug you, this place is tops. I feel confident in moving this place up to 5 big ol stars. In my heart and on my taste buds, this sweet neighborhood bakery is a winner, indeed! Now I'm kinda dreaming of getting a big pyramid of ding dongs (who needs cupcakes?!) for my wedding dessert instead of cake!

I've had a limited amount of their selections, but I was thoroughly unimpressed with everything - except the ding dong. I could eat their ding dongs all day and if that was all I'd eaten this review would've been easily 5 stars. Biggest take away was the ridiculous prices, if you are going to spend this much on baked goods get Zingerman's. Most notably disappointing were the hard and bland cookies, which for the price was a huge let down. The ginger cookie was the best of those I tried, but even so it was hard and tasted like it was made a few days ago. Even my coffee was weak and flavorless. For such an interesting looking place, I was sad it didn't turn out to be very good.

In the heart of a residential neighborhood lies this architecturally beautiful and colorful building. The bakery itself is very tiny (only 2 chairs and two display cases) but very charming. Not only do they sell desserts of all kinds: scones, ding dongs, torts, cookies, & pastries, but they have sandwiches, soups and coffee menu. Desserts -Butter Tort: hmmm almost like toffee or butterscotch. It's sticky, chewy, moist, flaky, syrupy sweet and refreshing. -Dark Chocolate Ding Dong: not knowing what a ding dong was, it's layered chocolate cake with white frosting in between and dipped in dark chocolate. Not a huge cake person, I found it to be quite alright. The dipping chocolate is very rich and overpowers the rest of the ding dong--even giving the cake part a bit more moisture. FINAL VERDICT: The two goodies I enjoyed weren't my favorite, but the bakery has much more to offer so I would stop in anytime to try more.

I keep getting really disappointed by this place and am upset with myself for not listening to my boyfriend today, when he tried to remind me about all my previously disappointing experiences here. The prices are, as a friend once described, "hyper inflated" and the pastries are just not as good as the prices would indicate. And today I finally caved in and shelled out the $3.50 for a vegan ding dong. Why is there so much hype? It tastes like a ho-ho. Maybe vegans' standards for baked goods are so low that an average ding dong is a glorious experience for them. It's crowded, hot and stuffy inside as well. It makes me wonder how the baked goods can stay fresh at all behind the display all day. (On second thought, maybe they just don't. My ding dong melted into the pastry paper it was wrapped in before I had the chance to walk out the door and eat it.) The exterior is cute, which is why I'm giving this place two stars. Credit cards for purchases over $8 only.

This is a really cool spot selling delicious treats of all sorts. We had them put together trays for our wedding reception and they made the process easy. I worked directly with the owner, who made suggestions for how best to stretch our dollars and helped us with pricing. The treats (we ended up with lemon bars, peanut butter cookies, ding dongs, and butter tarts) were a huge hit, and I will definitely continue to come in and get my favorites. My wife loves their gluten free options too!

Very cool and unique spot for a latte, sandwich, or sweet snack. The sandwich was good and the baked goods even better. I just wish I had bought more of the Belgian chocolates

I love this place! Best neighborhood spot for baked goods and coffee. The owner is so kind and such a great asset to the neighborhood and community. Their muffins and scones are the best in town and they serve Roos Roast coffee! Our favorites are the carrot muffins and cherry scones!

The eclairs are great for non-chocolate lovers--the custard is delicious! Definitely not on the cheap side but I'm glad to be supporting local businesses!

The perfect west side place to grab a quick bite. Sitting on the sidewalk gives you a nice slice of life in Ann Arbor. Friendly staff, excellent quality food. You must try the Ding Dongs!

Love this place. Coffee is great. Pastries are wonderful. Try the Date Nut Wonder Bar... Right in my neighborhood, locally owned business, great people work there (esp Scott the owner)

The absolute best bakery/coffee shop in AA! The food is fantastic - I have ordered cakes and pies for several events now and always so delicious and beautiful. The coffee is top notch. The customer service is unmatched. Big City Small World Bakery truly cares about their product, costumers and community. Will be back soon!

Once again ordered cupcakes. Called in from Boston to deliver to my daughter on her birthday in Ann Arbor. Delivered on time and heard the cupcakes were awesome!!

If you like tiny vegan cakes for like $8 cooooommmeeeeee oooonnnnnnnnnn dddooowwwwwnnnn!!!! This place actually isn't that good. I'm just giving it 5 stars because I know someone that works here. (Metallica Voice) "Sad but truuuueeeeee"

staff was friendly, but pastries were so dry and definitely not fresh, soooo expensive !!!

I bought a gluten-free chocolate raspberry cake from this bakery. it was supposed to feed 6-12 people, but it very small--enough for 6 people max. the cake was dry, the icing was minimal and the raspberry filling was unpleasant. I won't be going back.

In one word...Amateurish. Ordered a carrot cake. A 6" cake costs the same as a big city bakery, but it looks terrible. The baker REALLY needs to take some lessons on how to frost a cake. The frosting base is roughly applied, and they put the bare minimum of decoration on the cake. Looking at that cake, I was certain I could frost a homemade cake at least as well, and I've never had much luck with decorations. If the cake tasted fantastic, then I could overlook how ugly it was. Unfortunately, the carrot cake itself was dense and dry. They used a buttercream frosting (which was as advertised), but with unflavored frosting, I found the combination to be unappetizing. Out of the four of us cutting the cake tonight, 2 thought the cake was not great but OK, and 2 thought it was terrible. So... two stars it is...

So I decided to get a cake for my boyfriend's birthday. I called all the bakeries within walking distance of UM's campus and asked if they had any cakes in stock. Decadent Delight didn't pick up, Zingerman's and everyone else was too far away to walk in February weather, the Cupcake Station said no, we need 48 hrs notice. Big City Small World said no, but we do have ding-dong cakes. Sweet. She says they can decorate the ding-dong cake. I ask them to write his name on the cake, with two hearts as decorations. The woman on the line was easily the surliest person I have talked to all month, which I was surprised by (you work at a bakery, it's not like you're chained up to a hospital reception desk) but whatever, as long as they don't spell his name wrong, I don't mind. I carefully spell it out over the phone (E as in Elephant...T as in...). The 6" ding dong cake comes out to $20. Swing by later in the day to pick it up. The woman who answered the phone appears gone, and a male cashier shows me the cake. I am stunned. It is hideous. The white icing text looks like it was written by a four year old (see photos). The cursive is broken up and squished in no less than four places. I ask the cashier if there's anything they can do and he shrugs. The decorator is gone. He can give me a refund, but it's late in the day and I probably can't take a cab somewhere else to get a cake in time before my boyfriend comes home. He doesn't apologize, and gives the excuse that maybe her frosting was a little cold today. I leave, feeling increasingly more disappointed in my super ugly birthday surprise for him on the way home. After taking a photo for Yelp, I put some cream cheese in a bag and cut off the corner in a desperate attempt to salvage the font. I think the reason I'm so annoyed is just the combination of the surly woman, the horrid frosting, and the cashier who just didn't care at all that I was upset. If you have an incompetent decorator, just tell me you can't decorate cakes and I'll suck it up and call a cab to take me to Zingerman's. TL;DR - Bought birthday cake. Terrible frosting job with no customer service to make up for it.

It had been a few years but I decided to give it a try again. Glad we did! The service was kind and the muffins were worth it. They even gave my son a free sugar cookie. Made his day.

I work fairly close to here, and have been stopping by for my daily iced tea since it's a billion degrees out anymore. They have two display cases just loaded with pastries - tarts, cheesecakes, eclairs - you name it, they seem to have it. After looking at them for a few days, I decided to throw caution in the wind and got a German Chocolate cupcake for the Mister, and a Ding-Dong for myself. Oh baby. These were the most impressive bakery items I've had in a long time, possibly ever. Nothing was stale (I'm looking at you, Cake Nouveau), none of the frosting/white gunk in my Ding-Dong tasted of chemicals (I'm also looking at you, Little Debbie), and everything was uber-chocolate-y. Sigh. Pure gorging bliss. Their prices are pretty high, but shit, it's real good and they make everything thing themselves, so I say it's worth it. I hear they also bake bread and stuff, but if it doesn't contain sugar, I'm not interested...

Note to self: BRING CASH. Big City Small World isn't cash only, but they do have an $8 minimum if you want to use your card. Now, that $8 wouldn't go very far at certain other bakeries in the area, but it will get you a couple of vegan ding dongs or excellent muffins or cookies at Big City. I've really enjoyed everything I've tried from this little neighborhood bakery - if only we lived closer, as I would love to be able to stroll down for coffee and treats on a lazy weekend morning. Every neighborhood should have a place like Big City.

Cute shop with good coffee, delicious home-made pastries, tons of gluten-free and vegan options, and very friendly staff.

Really, I would just come here for the ding dongs... they are amazing. Both the regular and the vegan types are so good! I also ordered a ding dong cake for a friend, but it just wasn't as good as the regular ding dongs. (I feel like I've typed ding dong too many times...) Anyway, the scones and muffins are also pretty tasty. And on Fat Tuesday, they always have tons of delicious Paczki delivered from Hamtramck. The cheesecake can be undercooked and the coffee is only okay. But the people who work here are always so nice, and I think this little bakery is a great place to have in the neighborhood.

when it comes to sweets, there are chocolate people and stuff-other-than-chocolate people: i'm a chocolate person. i used to work a few blocks from here, and although there was a plethora of chocolate-related possibilities, i would stop by in the morning for a fresh-from-the-oven raspberry cream cheese muffin. there is absolutely nothing like a warm, soft, melt-in-your-mouth muffin. add whole raspberries and the smoothness of cream cheese to this formula, and muffin perfection is achieved. ...my inner chocolate beast came out a few times and got the ding dongs, too. oddly enough, they were not too sweet (which is expected from a ding dong), but incredibly luscious and rich, with cream overflowing from within. don't eat more than one...ok, you can, they're vegan, after all.

I am not from Ann Arbor, but the vegan Ding Dongs make me want to move here. The vegan cupcakes and cookies head me toward wanting to marry this place. A small neighborhood bakery on a quiet street, they pack a lot of delicious baked goods in AND have an incredible selection for us vegans! The Ding Dongs really are astonishingly good, like the greatest imaginable version of your best childhood memory of a Hostess snack cake. So good!

I ordered the eclairs. It was delicious! My husband had a ding-dong. I rushed to get there cause yelp page saying it close on 2pm...but its actually open longer till 4pm or something on Sunday. I have to say little over-price on everything. But i'd go back to get more eclair next time i go to AA.

I work downtownish, so Big-City is one of my favorite places to walk to for a delicious morning or afternoon snack. It's located on a corner on Miller ave, just a quick jaunt from Main street. The store/bakery is very small with just a few cafe tables inside if you simply have to devour your purchases right then and there. They have a good assortment of hearty cookies, scones and bars that are of the heavier, nubbly-oaty, dried fruit variety. I really like their cherry and oatmeal scones, they have a shortbread consistency and homey mouth-feel that I like. I also love their cream-puffs, eclairs, and ding-dongs...yes, rich chocolate cake with scrumptious vanilla cream filling enrobed in dark choco *mmmmmmm* The staff are quirky and nice. I don't drink coffee so I can't comment on the quality of the brew, but the eatables are notable.