Candice C.
Yelp
The pastries are great. If based on that alone...I would've given it a 5.
I believe that every review should be written with good intentions on passing on the truth about a business. I've been to places where mishaps occurred and it's understandable that employees make mistakes or have "off" days but it's been nearly 1 month since our trip here and I still get upset thinking about what happened. Let me make it clear that I am born and raised on Oahu, Hawaii. My mother-in-law's entire family is from Maui and some still reside there. I know what it means to serve customers with aloha and respect. Our family loves to support local businesses (and have even owned local businesses ourselves) which is why it's so disheartening to have to share something negative about a small business here in Hawaii.
I've been here before prior to this trip. I knew we had to get here early to get the good stuff and that although it's out of the way, it's well worth the drive. Their pastries have always been spot on so much, that we specifically came here to buy butter dinner rolls for two New Years parties we would be hosting/going to because we wanted to share the mouth watering rolls with our family. My friend and her son have never tried it but we're excited based on how highly I spoke of it. My husband also wanted to get the donuts on a stick because he hadn't had those before and I'm always down for a good donut!
Knowing their popularity, we booked the earliest flight which meant getting ourselves and our infant to the airport by 6am. We made this our first stop around 10:30am after flying in from Honolulu. We intended to get here by 9/9:20am but there was a major delay at the rental car center.
When we arrived, there were at least two other tourist families and one local here who were looking at the display case which by then, was nearly empty as to be expected.
Our main priority were the dinner rolls so my husband, friend, her son and myself split up to find any bag they had left. No luck.
We rushed to the counter where an older lady (short hair with glasses) was ringing someone else up. When that customer left, the worker did not acknowledge us until about 1 min later when I initiated the conversation with a "Hi!"
She didn't greet me back. Instead she said "Yes" in a very short and unfriendly manner.
At that moment, I noticed two bags of dinner rolls in the back left counter. With excitement I asked "Oh! Could we get those two bags of rolls?"
"No." *Silence* she just stood there and stared at us.
She was so short with us that we honestly thought she was making a joke. Normally, when you ask for something and the employee declines you, they take the time to explain why not or they offer an alternative option. In this case, she stood there as it we were wasting her time.
Caught off guard and a but flustered, I asked "wait, are you serious? Or joking? I'm sorry, I can't tell."
"Yes." *Silence*
My husband and I both tried to ask if there were more in the back or anywhere else because we couldn't find any.
She shouted sounding very annoyed while gesturing rudely with her arms wide open "well, do you see any?!"
We paused and overheard one of the tourist families next to us asking the other worker "Do you have any of these stick donuts without the cinnamon sugar? We were just looking for the glazed."
The worker responds in the same manner "Do you see any glazed?!" Then the worker cocked their head at them as if they should know better.
Back to the lady helping us, she walks away from us without a word and goes onto the sales floor (somewhere in the back corner of the store), holds a bag of dinner rolls up in the air and yells in a condescending tone "There is one RIGHT HERE!"
Still trying to keep our cool to not make a scene in front of our friend's son, we said "ok thank you, we'll take that one."
She comes back to where we are and asks "well, do you want it or not?"
I repeated that yes, we will take it.
On our way out, I overheard a new group of tourist walking in as one asked, "I wonder if they still have those donuts."
I was so tempted to warn them not to go in but still being upset, I thought it best to keep my thoughts to myself.
What happened wasn't an accident. It wasn't one person having one bad day because BOTH workers treated ALL of the customers present in this same manner. It was disgusting and degrading. We were torn on whether or not to purchase anything at all but it costed us more to get there when you consider airfare, time and gas so we did end up purchasing what we originally planned which were the rolls and some donuts they had left. We spent about $50. Our family did enjoy the rolls but will any of us go back? Probably not.
If the owner would like more info on who the workers were, feel free to reach out to me via Yelp. I'd be happy to speak to you about this so you can address it with those responsible.