CAO Bakery & Cafe

Great spot for some delicious breakfast sandwiches, empanadas were great too, ordered take out and everything was nicely packaged with all the utensils and dips.

If you call yourself a CAO (Cuban American Original), I’d expect the perfect Cuban sandwich. Unfortunately, this was far from it—no pickles, no mustard, the bread wasn’t buttered or toasted, and the ham was served cold. I actually had to stop at the store afterward just to buy pickles and mustard to fix it myself. Very disappointing!

Laid back beautiful cafe. Wide array of delicious breakfast option with local flavor. Staff is sweet and helpful with ur order though slightly slow. We need to have patience while bordering. Place has warm vibes and you can sit and relax here. Decor is simple and sitting is spacious. Restrooms are clean and well maintained.

The quality and taste of food is a bargain, as the prices are reasonable. The open kitchen is clean as is the seating area. The design is quite nice with outdoor seating if desired. The staff is friendly and hard working. No frills excellence. Five stars.

I been coming here for years, but stopped for a while because service went down due to poor management. Please make the coffee fresh and warm the milk for each individual coffee. Don’t keep the milk warm in the machine because it makes the coffee taste bad. Need to train your employees for some basic customer service skills.

I used to come here all the time with my oldest daughter, she adored the swing they had outside. It was a good vibe and different. We decided to come again today and was disappointed. The food we ordered from the window display was old. Hard and cold. Coffee was decent. There are plenty of tables to sit indoors and outdoors. No toilet paper in the restroom although the place was empty. Service was decent but not very friendly.

We purchased two pork holiday dinners incredible taste portions if tamales bred flan bout total of about 8 pastelitos trays 2 great tasting tiramisu cappuccino desserts their vanilla cake is amazing. Customer service welcoming rewards their knowing my name WONDERFUL They are awesome!!! During these time savings is important and the pork bundles were at great prices. THANK YOU CAO AND TO YOUR STAFF IN MIAMI BEACH!!!! P.S. best Cuban food on South Beach.

Absolutely delicious food. I love to order scrambled eggs and fried chicken. It's off menu as a meal, but they are happy to accommodate!!!

There are two bakeries in SoFlo that I'll swear by and CAO is one of them. Great pastries, staff and really enjoyed the little playlist they had going. Beef empanada 10/10!

Nice selection of pastries in this bakery and cafe. The shop has a large inside area with tables and there is a very helpful lady at the cashier easy to help you with your order! We only had coffee and it was very good. Next time we will definitely try some of the chocolate cakes: they looked amazing. Enjoy!

The staff is very slow and never seem like they know what to do. I order take out and no matter how long I wait to pick it up it's never even started. EVERY TIME! Slowest staff ever. Ordered: 3:54 Received: 4:30 After a reminder Oh yea the order, heat up a premade Cuban sandwich.

Waited 10mins patiently in line for coffee and got ignored. They know I was waiting and deliberately decided to help other people that just arrived Terrible customer service, I was a regular here but after this experience I am disappointed and no longer comfortable being a patron. Pinecrest Bakery is 1 block away, I will go here from now on

Had a Cafe con Leche and Churrasco and Eggs for breakfast this morning and my cravings were satisfied. The Churrasco Steak was cooked to perfection, tender, juicy and tasty, and was served with eggs and french fries. The coffee was delicious too. Service was good and the place is clean and very cozy! Casual and relaxing atmosphere with Latino music is always a good combination! Check it out!

I had empanadas and an apple dessert of some kind I can't think of. But everything was great. So light and fluffy. The people were friendly and helped as soon as we walked in. There were a lot of people there either enjoying the food or on their computer/reading. I would definitely suggest stopping by.

A small charming place with Cuban empanadas. The service was friendly. Try the churros but they only have it on certain days so it is best to call before driving to their bakery.

I've been to CAO a few times but visited again this past weekend. My usual order is an egg & American cheese croissant sandwich, Cuban toast, guava and cheese pastelito and cortaditos. I've ordered the tequeños before but they haven't been the most fresh. I definitely suggest coming in person vs delivery as it's more fresh. I wanted to order a pan de bono this weekend but they looked very undercooked. It's a very big bakery with ample seating and lots of options. Unfortunately, the customer service falls short every time I visit. They are not attentive while you stand in line or when you order. The food is a bit inconsistent as well. Sometimes it's quite good and others not so much. Either way, it's a good spot to head to when you're craving Cuban breakfast in Miami Beach.

I'm search for a cubano sandwich on my first Miami long stay I ended up at CAO bakery. Very slow ordering process at the cashier but finally I got there.. mandatory Spanish speaking for little more realism One cubano and a Guava and Cheese Pastelito.. The food was ready reasonably soon and now let dig in. The sandwich was really good, very moist, maybe little to much of mayo and big enough to skip dinner (I had the smart idea to have it at 4pm...). The pastelito yummy enough to come back couple of days later for more.

Came here for a quick pick me up breakfast run I grab the prepared pasta Leto, which is ham cheese, and ground beef on a glaze pasta Leto. I also have the fresh squeezed orange juice and a café con leche. Staff was nice and attentive. Service was quick.

More like 2.5... We were looking for a place to get our snack on and found CAO on yelp. It was our first time. We were overwhelmed by all their varieties of cakes, pastelitos, empanadas and pastries. We came later in the day and many items were gone or there were only 1 or 2 left of certain items. I liked that they had a large area of sweets and a large area of savory goods. The service was very slow and the people behind the counter didn't acknowledge who came in any order. They just let people cut in front of us and took their orders. But what made it so bad was how slow they were helping people. FINALLY, we when it got to us we ended up getting two cakes, a few empanadas, and some pastelitos. We probably took the last of a few items. The flan cheesecake we got was meh. The rum cake was also not really worth mentioning. The guava pastelito was probably the best thing there. The savory beef thing we got was also okay. It was a disappointing experience because we were hoping to come back maybe the next day to try some other items since they had such a large variety. Service was shit like I mentioned. The inside is large and theres places to sit inside and outside. There is limited parking. We parked on the street and paid meter. We would not come back.

It's part of our morning ritual to come and try the pastries , good food and service , wide selection of things , definitely recommend

I try to avoid chain restaurants, but this is a local chain so I made an exception. The format felt very polished, but the food still felt very homey. I tried a bunch of things in my first trip and loved them all! Croquetas de la Casa - Ham: Little fried deliciousness that has a strong ham flavor inside. Though not like actual bits of ham, almost like a starch-diluted ham-loaf. Croquetas de la Casa - Chicken: Very mild chicken flavor. Tasted mainly like dough. I liked the ham variety more. Papa Rellena: Small-ish deep fried potato ball with a little bit of ground meat and a big green olive inside. Tasty, but they could have used more beef. Tequeno Cheese: Love these little sticks. Quite doughy, almost like Pillsbury Crescent Roll dough. With a nice cheese inside that is squeaky at room temperature a slightly melty when heated. Pan De Bono: A bit like an oversized pão de queijo, though a tad more doughy and little less cheesy. Pairs surprisingly well with coffee. Preparadito: Love the savory and sweet going on here! It's got that sticky glazed pastelito shell, but it's cut open like a sandwich. And in-between there's a massive amount of flavored ground meat (like the empanada filling), ham and cheese. Very filling and very memorable. Colombian Cheese Empanada: Pretty basic with just a thick grainy shell (masa?) and cheese inside. But I love cheese, so I'm all about this. Fried Beef Empanada: I think this is a doughy shell that just happens to be deep fried. And it's kinda delicious that way. Feels crunchier and heartier than the baked empanada. Baked Beef Empanada: Flaky baked dough with lots of yummy spiced beef inside. The dough feels airier than your typical baked empanada. Pastelitos Guava: So much guava! Really indulgent for guava lovers and especially nice against the backdrop of that buttery flaky dough. Pastelitos Nutella: Lots of Nutella drizzled on top, though the filling in the pastry tube was kinda sparse. All the Nutella-less sections towards the edges were a bit dry. Capuchinos: Reminds me a bit of Italian baba au rhum. Though instead of rum, it's this deliciously sweet syrup that soaks the little spongey cakes. Quatro Leches: As if tres leches wasn't indulgent enough, add dulce de leche on top for numero quatro! And it was a lot of dulce de leche on top, like almost 1/3 the container. Took awhile to get to the tres leches underneath, which was creamy and delicious. Flan: A cute little flan in a big container. They give you lots of that nice flan syrup. And the flan itself is eggy, firm and sweet. Coco Macaroon w/ Dulce de Leche: Two delicious treats put together for a new delicious treat! It's basically two toasted coconut macaroons, in cookie form. With a generous amount of dulce de leche between making for a delicious dessert sandwich. Quite memorable!

Great pastries! Great breakfasts! If you haven't eaten something amazing from here, unless you're under 15 with no transportation, live three thousand miles away, or have bricked in all of the doors in your home, WHY? A Cuban bakery, you get all of the pan-Latin flavor of Miami, but their cakes, petit fours, and cookies transcend the average Latin bakery 10x! If Superman could stop a speeding bullet with a pastelito de carne, he'd be baking at CAO. Service is amazing. Parking is awful. It's Miami Beach, though, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Great food and great service. Nice ambiance as well. They gave us free mimosas for Mother's Day.

Had CAO twice -- the first time, I didn't really get the hype. I tried the pastelito de guayaba (guava pastry). I mean it was flaky and pretty tasty, but I thought it was just OK compared to California's Porto's Bakery. HOWEVER, the second time, I tried some savory dishes and these were pretty dang good. *La Frita (CAO pork, chorizo, shoestrings papitas, sazon aioli on potato bread) - Flavors were good but the pork patty itself was pretty dry unfortunately. *Cuban ham, pork, swiss cheese on Cuban bread - I would get this OVER and OVER again. Such a fantastic value! It was filled with ham and pork and it was super tender. I did add mustard as well!

I've been coming to this bakery for a few years now. what's most important in a good restaurant is consistency ......really good food, super clean bathroom and dining area, good prices, and the service is fantastic......just a bunch of really nice ladies working behind the counter. tables are constantly cleaned so you don't have any stickiness on the tables. this is my go to place every day when I'm in Miami. the girls are fantastic!

Friendly and warm welcome. Great customer service. The empanadas are delicious . The restaurant is clean and love all the variety of desserts.

Spinach empanada with iced coffee with almond milk Good quick service. The coffee is strong. Seems to have a lot of locals come in here for an espresso and bounce. I would recommend you try an empanada. Muy bueno!

We have been here several times over the last few months and the service and food has always been the best. What I like most about CAO is their coffee and the patio area out front. There are plenty of pastries and breakfast options. It's also a great place to grab a dessert for eating there or taking hone. I highly recommend you give them a try. We will be back next week!

Worse "Cuban" sandwich I've ever had. Dry pork, fake cheese and tasteless "Cuban" bread. ... Le ronca . The 2 stars are for the staff who deserve 5 stars.

Siempre es lo mismo con cao. Se Les pone NO CONDIMENTS y no siguen instrucciones ... third review with the same issue. Last time I had to walk in with my crutches to tell them that I ordered through Uber eats and they didn't read the instructions. The lady didn't bother to even apologize she grabbed my bag and just changed the order and handed it back to me when she was done. I'm the idiot that orders again but I recommend if you want to order from then just show up and give them your instructions because they clearly can't read or don't bother to read that's most likely more accurate

I don't know what to say. I've grown up going to this bakery but my last experience has me apprehensive about returning. The guy that took my order at the register wiped his nose and would nibble at his cuticles, which I thought was gross and unsanitary, but didn't think much cause I thought one of the other people would prepare my order. Well he proceeded to prepare my order so I decided to watch him thru the glass displays when to my shock he grabbed my food with his bare hands the same he was using at register!!! There were so many people around I took my order and dumped it, except my coffee cause someone else prepared it. I reached out to the store by email and they said thanks for informing them and they would give me credit for my order, which they never did. If I return I will be watching as you should too!

Amazing Reuben, dessert, coffee, breakfast, churrasco and eggs. I ate here twice on my trip and wish I would've gone even more. The service is so friendly and it wasn't a very long wait to get our food. Super clean and open inside and there's outdoor seating as well.

What a hidden gem this place is! We went here for coffee and we're just drooling at the side of all of their desserts! The service here is fairly slow and I must say the coffee I had tasted quite odd. The espresso though was quite good.

Cuban for the win! So reasonably priced, lovely bakery, great staff, clean location. This is off the beaten path for South Beach, but we enjoyed more local/cafe down time.

Quick stop on the way to the private beach on South Beach. DRINKS: Cortadito, cafelito, and coladas were all sweet and tasty. FOOD: The Guava and Nutella pastelitos were both sweet and flaky. This was the first time I tried a "bretzel" which was also tasty with a custard filling. I also recommend the Guava and Cheese pastelito (if you're not lactose intolerant, like yours truly ) SETTING: Nice open plan with plenty of indoor seating. Great outdoor seating area with a swinging chair! Staff was friendly and helpful. Tl; dr: good for a quick stop for coffee & pastry in SoBe.

What a great place. Coming from California I didn't know what to try. The food and drinks were perfect and the ladies behind the counter were very nice. Lots of beautiful and delicious pastries! Breakfast croissant was delicious.

This place had delicious sandwiches too. I had the churrasco and was delish. The dessert and food were good. Fresh orange juice

Beautiful, clean and spacious location with plenty of options to grab and go or dine in for breakfast / lunch or snacks throughout the day. Parking is limited, staff barely speaks English, and the options, freshness, kindness, and speed make up for it.

The tres leche was delicious. The empanada was okay nothing special. Would Definitely go back for more of their sweet pastry selections

Cuban benedict breakfast and cafe con leche were amazing!! Perfect place for a quick bite and great coffee.

Beautiful sight of this bakery was as soon as you walk in you see the pastries, the sandwiches and the pastelitos! I just ordered an Empanada and a colada and it was quick and efficient. I loved it!! It stays busy in the morning but totally worth it!

Cao never disappoints. Fresh bakery items and delicious cafe con leche. My favorite Cuban bakery when I am in Miami.

Great food and ambiance. Can't bear the price. Best bakery I have found in the area. Ok

Very disappointed! First time I went to a CAO bakery it was in Flagler street and got a beef steak for breakfast with eggs and toast long story short the meal sent me to the hospital with food poisoning and I know it was bong to happen when I saw the food. I decided to give it another chance because a coworker ordered a croqueta preparada to be delivered and it was great I don't know if it was hunger or it was just good so i decided to keep coming for the same thing. Last time I was here I ordered a Colombian empanada and it was hard as a bricks. Today I came and got a Tequeño because how can you go wrong and by the pictures you can see the expectations were not met. The croqueta preparada was cold the bun was warm but the j side was an incredible cube. I'm my opposing management should focus on quality control a bit more.

What an amazing and awesome place to get your breakfast and lunch . Very clean place and friendly greeting staffs. Whoever is back in the house great job guys! Everyone deserve a raise! I highly recommend this to my family and friends.

Great pastelitos! What does a Cuban do when in Miami Beach? Look for guava, cheese or meat pastelitos to bring back home. I searched Yelp for a high rated place in the Beach. This place did not disappoint. Many people get the flavors or the texture right but this place had them all. Additionally they evenly distributed the filling so your every bite was accompanied by both puff pastry and guava or cheese or meat. Golden brown color so your pastry was not in danger of soggy lookalikes. A little store with limited parking but a great assortment of Cuban Must Haves.

Delicious and fresh pastries, love their ham and cheese croissant. They also have a happy hour for their homemade empanadas.

Perfect location in South Beach with some free parking. The service is always pleasant. The prices are amazing especially for South Beach and can get a Colada for under two dollars. They have a great selection of baked goods cakes and the typical Cuban breakfast staples. My favorite empanada is the fried chicken second is the baked ham and cheese all $2 or $2.25. I always get the pastelito of guava and cheese which is a large portion. They have some outdoor seating as well with some lounging inside and out. My go to spot for Weekend breakfast morning.

Greta spot to get an assortment of desserts including Cuban cakes and pies. The pastelitos are delicious!! They travel well too for those who are out of state. I just toss them in the oven, toaster, toaster oven, air fryer whatever to get them a little crispy again.

Cuban bakery with tons of sweets to choose from. We went pretty early in the morning but I imagine this place gets busy. Spanish speaking staff, the cashier spoke in Spanish and English. I had the beef pastelito. I was so curious the difference between tres leches and quatro leches! The fourth milk is dulce de leche my bad I couldn't take pics before I ate the food! Coffee was a little small for a "large" or at least it felt like it. Overall pretty affordable and good, especially if you have a sweet tooth like me. Only a few parking spots though! Cute outdoor dining area as well.

This is our favorite place to get a good, quick, breakfast or snack. The sandwiches are amazing and fresh, staff is super nice and the seating areas are so cute. I have been to some other locations but this is the best one by far!

Seriously the best Pastel de Guayaba in town. They are generous with the filling, the crust is perfect balance of crisp and soft too. The pastry is served warm. Have a cortado made with evaporated Milk for an extra sweet treat. Wow!

Very Racist Women. I normally go in and get fried chicken empanadas. I liked them so much that I set my wife in to get me some before I got home from work. They first told my wife that she could only order 2 empanadas, I do not know why but they acted like she could only buy two. So she had to leave out come back in because she wanted 6 total but they only let her order 2. I do not know why. She's holding my daughter at the same time. So I like the salsa they sale for my empanadas. So I ordered six empanadas in total and the lady gave my wife one salsa. I normally go In with no problems. But the moment I sent my wife in there was a problem. They won't see any of me or my associates money ever again. I pray the business closes like all the rest that have been right there. Common courtesy is a huge thing. That's how you ensure that you continually receive customers. You guys are on your way down.

I don't post 5 stars reviews often but when I do is because is about a great place with outstanding service. Everyone here is very friendly and attentive. They ask you how do you want your coffee! Which is very important when making a cafecito or colada! And they have inside and outdoor cozy seating. Is the place I suggest to my friends to visit when in Town if they want to try Cuban coffee and pastries, that are to drool for by the way! Not to mention they have a bakery and catering at reasonable prices. So now you know where to get your bday cake and party trays

Had a friend recommended this place for coffee and pastries and boy did it slap. The coffee was amazing and pair that along side with any of their guava and cheese pasties and you will be in heaven.

At Cao bakery the food is good. But you will only get to try half of your order. Because is you order delivery they surely will forget something. My boyfriend and I order from them almost every day is week and they always forget one or two items. When i tried calling, no one kicked up the phone. So it makes it very difficult to enjoy my breakfast because is always a half experience. Will not be ordering from here again. This has happened way too many times.

Very good Food and services every time with the real smile ... I love Pastelitos and Cuban coffee ... Modern and clean place.