Butter&
Cake shop · Dogpatch ·
Custom cakes with modern designs, less sugar, delicious flavors
Custom cakes with modern designs, less sugar, delicious flavors
"This bakery's annual Lunar New Year offering is a golden snake-topped cake with red bean filling and hand-piped buttercream, available through Sunday, February 2; the store requires at least four days’ notice to secure the sheet cake (about 10–14 servings)." - Dianne de Guzman
"The San Francisco cake shop Butter& earned its popularity with pithy sayings inscribed upon cakes, but it’s the flavors that kept customers coming back. Gorgeous stacks of light brown sugar cake are stacked with your choice of flavors like brown butter and Meyer lemon or sweet cream and berries. Options also include fully frosted cakes with designs like marble, ombre, and dinos. Delivery or pickup in the Dogpatch are both available." - Becky Duffett
"I find the new Dogpatch storefront of Butter& at 690 Indiana Street a welcome achievement for longtime customers who went from picking up cakes at the owner's home and curbside outside an industrial kitchen — with inconvenient three-flight stairs and wild temperature swings — to a comfortable, light-filled retail space. Owner Amanda Nguyen has converted the former Noon All Day and Kin Khao space into an open pastry kitchen on display that centers pastry chefs, lets neighbors watch cakes being assembled, and humanizes the interaction between bakers and customers. Whole cakes will still be available for preorder and pickup, but there are now day-of purchases, single-serving two-layer cakes in black tins, and a “cutie” five-inch two-layer cake that feeds four (highlighting sweet cream and roasted berries; hazelnut and chocolate; and brown butter Meyer lemon), with seasonal flavors like black sesame red bean for Lunar New Year and a Creamsicle test for Valentine’s Day and plans to possibly sell cake by the slice. A new savory breakfast “cake” — essentially a fluffy frittata with carrots and green beans and a rotating savory ingredient topped with piped mashed potatoes (it “actually looks like Funfetti”) — is sold by the slice (opening with bacon and a fried-onion vegetarian version soon) and comes with a gold birthday candle and a cheery “happy breakfast.” The shop has also added a drink program in partnership with Hedge Coffee for drip coffee and au lait drinks (steamed whole or oat milk for matcha, hojicha, and kid-friendly hot chocolate) plus seasonal drinks like an upcoming Tongan vanilla; hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, closed Mondays." - Dianne de Guzman
"I know Butter& as the bakery run by Amanda Nguyen and best-known for its “quarantine cakes.”" - Paolo Bicchieri
"Picking up cakes from Butter&'s commercial kitchen was less than stellar for customers and employees, as owner Amanda Nguyen admits: customers pulled up curbside at an industrial building to an indiscreet door and texted the business of their arrival while employees fielded texts and trekked down from the third floor via an unreliable freight elevator carrying cake — an exhausting process when the bakery was receiving 100 orders a day, which Nguyen jokingly said felt "a little closer to a drug pickup." After launching from her South Potrero Hill home and then operating out of that commercial kitchen, Nguyen has finally secured the former Kin Khao spot at 690 Indiana Street in the Dogpatch so Butter& can be on the first floor and create an on-brand experience for its caring customers. The new storefront will retain the same look and feel as previous iterations but will focus on outfitting the kitchen with upgraded ovens and mixers, take advance orders for pickup while offering a limited number of cakes on display for same-day pickup at first, and is experimenting with a single-serving cake that Nguyen says is "not a cupcake, but a cake in a format that is very in line with the Butter& aesthetic." They won't launch a coffee program but are considering a tea service, and the space will be an open production pastry kitchen where customers can watch the team at work. Nguyen emphasizes Butter&'s people-centric mission and commitment to being the best employer in the food industry — team ownership stakes, stock options for full-time salaried staff, 100% company contributions to health care plans, and three months of company-sponsored mental health therapy — and she hopes this is store one with plans to open a second location in LA next year." - Dianne de Guzman
