Leah S.
Yelp
I guess the best part of our encounter with Garden Bakery, was after coming here and having a terrible time, we happened upon the Waiting Room which was incredible and without this bad breakfast, we may not have ever found the Waiting Room! We stopped in here for breakfast during our trip in Mendocino, and even though it was breakfast time, the place was dead. We parked on the street and made our way in.
Inside, it was even more dead, and the cases were almost empty. I ordered a Cinnamon Roll ($3.50 I think), a Mango Cream Cheese Danish ($3.50), and was hoping for a tamal but they were out of those, breakfast burritos, and just about everything else. The person helping us behind the counter was really short with us, dismissive, unhelpful, and as soon as we paid, they threw our items at us and walked away.
Once to the car, we bit into our baked goods. My Danish, although it looked pretty ok, was super dry like all the butter had baked out of the layers in the dough. There was filling, but it was so sparce and unremarkable, it definitely didn't taste like mango or cream cheese at all. Hubby's cinnamon roll was bland and also dry, and the frosting was grainy and heavy.
Overall, a terrible experience with really lackluster baked goods, unfriendly staff, and not somewhere I would return if I were back in the area. Do what we did and give this place the *pass* and head straight to the Waiting Room- you'll be glad you did, trust me.