Pearl's Bake Shoppe

ney cake was a pleasant surprise to our guests, and most of them chose it over cupcakes. Definitely choose to do a paid tasting - the flavor options are so unique.

free tasting, which provided a fun date for my fiancé and I when we were engaged!

f cupcakes, including gluten-free and vegan options. They were also easily able to make updates to the quote as our guest count and preferences solidified closer to the wedding date.

ting and consultation, we knew we had made the right choice. The atmosphere was welcoming, and the staff made the experience a fun and memorable part of our wedding planning. The cake itself was a masterpiece. The flavor was unique and absolutely delicious, striking the perfect balance between sweetness and different. We went with a blueberry brown sugar maple flavor combination. And let me tell you, our guests kept asking how we settled on such a great combination because they could not stop asking for another slice! It was clear that the bakery uses only the finest ingredients, and their skill in flavor pairing was evident in the cake’s taste. The execution of the design was beautiful, flawless , and was exactly what we wanted our cake to be! The cake was not just a dessert; it was a centerpiece that drew admiration from all our guests. The design we had discussed during the consultation was brought to life with such precision and elegance that it surpassed our expectations. This bakery is truly a gem of Richmond, delivering not just a cake, but an experience that will be remembered fondly by us and our guests. Their combination of tasty creations, beautiful designs, and a welcoming atmosphere makes them stand out as a premier choice for any couple’s wedding cake needs. Rating: 5/5 - Exceptional in every way, highly recommended for their exquisite wedding cakes and delightful service.

asy, the staff was very friendly, and the price was very reasonable. If you are looking for a cake for that special event, look no further. They are the best!

in mind, but I figured I should try it just to be sure. Wow, that cake knocked my socks off. #2 the cake is so delicious! It's heavy and dense while still be moist. The buttercream frosting is different than anything I've had before. Love it! I ended up getting 9 cakes (8 different flavors) instead of one big wedding cake because I am obsessed with trying everything and thought it would be fun for the guests. I got so many compliments on the idea and people loved the cake (of which they tried multiple flavors). The entire process was super smooth and we were able to easily change a few cake flavors 2 weeks before the wedding. Overall, definitely recommend!

, tarts, pops, and cake were delicious. There were hardly any leftovers! The tasting at their store was really fun and we enjoyed working with their staff. It was super easy. Will go back to grab a cupcake sometime soon!

em for asking for raises. He is in it for the money and it shows. The last bakery you should put your money into

as a normal cake because the wedding was out of town and we were going to have to transport it ourselves. We ordered a one tier cake with one of their designs on the basic cake catalogue and a matching sheet cake, and both were beautiful and as amazingly delicious as I always remember Pearl's to be!

provide the best possible product and experience for our customers and staff. However, we are also human beings running a small business during a time where tension and upheaval run rampant. Emotions are running high. That being said, Laurie has really set an example for compassionate leadership. She's made sure since the pandemic started that our staff would have no financial struggle. She's worked tirelessly in the Shoppe, from production to human resources to simple deep cleaning. And she truly cares about making all our customers events as special as they can be. To use her words, no matter what we ARE going to "make it right". I am honored to continue to work under and support the Pearl's name under her management. I work directly with wedding clients and decorating cakes, and my team is more excited than ever to get into the 2022 season!

akes promises she doesn't keep, and i have personally witnessed her berating employees IN FRONT OF OTHER EMPLOYEES AND CUSTOMERS. Personally I can't feel good about supporting a business like that. The product is good- let me make that clear. But the treatment you get,and the negativity you can feel immediatly upon entering, just isnt worth it. There are so many struggling small businesses out there-- i'd much rather support one where im treated with respect and kindness, and where i don't have to watch the staff be abused and mistreated.

te was booked. Told us we would have to get cupcakes instead and they could not be delivered. When trying to pay balance had to call 6 different times and stay on hold for about 30 minutes each time. Finally had to go up to store to pay balance. They have an excellent product but customer service could be improved.

trated with the customer service. My sister and I ordered a birthday cake for my mom‘s birthday, well in advance. We shared the photo and asked if the bakery would be able to recreate the cake. We were assured that the bakery could easily re-create the photo attached. The cake we received was two layers shorter than expected, very poorly decorated and underbaked. In fact, when we arrived, we were asked to come back in 30 minutes because our cake wasn't done cooling. Cooling/decorating was obviously rushed because the crumb coating is completely wrong, and the decoration wasn't even close and the top layer of the cake was sliding off the bottom layer. The baker used straws (cut in half) to hold up the cake. My sister and I had to immediately get another cake for my mom on her birthday because we could not present her with this. Both the admin and the owners were unhelpful, confrontational, and evasive. Even though we pick the cake up on a Sunday and of course my mom‘s birthday was on a Sunday, they informed us that they could not get back to us until Wednesday. Obviously, that would not be acceptable, so we insisted on speaking to a manager. The first manager took our information and promised to call us in thirty minutes. He didn’t. We called back and that same manager promised to have the owner of the bakery call. The owner did not call. We had to call back again, and after being offered $10, they eventually agreed to refund the money, However they insisted that the managers were busy in the kitchen. That is obviously untrue and a tactic to avoid speaking to a customer when a business makes a mistake. All they had to do, was acknowledge the mistake, acknowledge that the cake presented in the cake requested or nothing alike, and offer to fix their mistake. Instead, we got the runaround, had to completely regroup on the day of my mothers birthday, and we will never ever be ordering from this bakery again. We would suggest no one else put themselves through the same headache.

that we have found a more responsive vender and the cupcakes taste much better. It was a blessing that we found another vender.

we now live out-of-state and they weren't offering tastings when we could both be in VA (Dec '20), I stayed committed: Pearl's was still the only shop for us! I scheduled a curbside tasting order for the next time I could do the 6hr drive to VA, February 12, 2021. There was a freezing rain storm in VA that day, and the shop opened late. I called to verify they'd be open and my tasting would be ready: yep, come by at 3. Arrived at my scheduled time, waited outside 20min in the freezing rain, and was asked to come back in an hour -_- Fine. Called a few days later, still in February, excited to start my wedding cake order! Someone took down my info and a couple of very basic details and told me their wedding person would be in touch with me shortly. A week goes by and no word. I fill out the online form, crickets. Couple more days, I call again and leave a VM. One month from my initial "let's get started" call, I fill out the online form again, on March 18. NOT UNTIL MARCH 24 DO I HEAR BACK FROM PEARL'S --at all!--over a month after I started asking them to be my vendor. Was I in a state of perpetual madness from then until now? I guess cake, wedding planning, and a pandemic can have pretty f***ed up effects on the brain, because I decided to keep pursuing. All they said is "we're available for your date, we'll be in touch." April 1 (now 1.5 months out from my first contact with them), they email *some* details about my request, but don't respond to all of my questions. I'm still gonna roll with it, because I am thrilled to be hearing from them at all! April 21 (now 2 full months from my first contact), I receive my emailed contract from Pearl's! ONLY two months to create a contract for a single flavor, single tier, ~40 serving "naked style" cake. But wait, what's this? There are two fairly significant details on the contract that are wrong, that were *instantly* noticed and I *immediately* asked to be correctly... ...but that was 3 weeks ago, and with less than six months until my wedding, their failure to fix two simple details on this contract has been the straw to break the camel's back--and that's on top of a pretty heaping pile of straws. I've shot myself in the foot waiting on Pearl's to get their act together, but this doesn't have to be you. Spare yourself the trouble and go elsewhere, this place is sadly not what it used to be.

st of the cupcakes were fantastic!

beautiful and absolutely delicious. All the guests loved the cake and we had plenty leftover to bring home. Pearls truly made our day with the beautiful cake and I would highly recommend using them for your special day!

nd they didn't put the flowers on the cake when they delivered it. Other than that it was great!

tional, and really helpful in choosing the flavors we wanted. They were easily accommodating to make some of our cupcakes gluten-free, and made sure each of those boxes were well-labeled. They even set aside a small box of cupcakes to be put in the bride and groom’s suite on our wedding night, such a wonderful touch! And of course, our guests raved about how amazing all of the cupcakes were! Thanks to Pearl’s for making our big day so sweet!

r). The cutter cake was absolutely gorgeous AND delicious, and the guests raves about the cupcakes. I love that they give you a coupon to get a one-year anniversary cake so you don’t have to freeze part of your cake for a year! They were very organized and professional, and I feel like you can’t go wrong with Pearl’s!

troke-loving dreams come true :) Does it sound like that concept might be hard to pull off? You wouldn't know it from working with the amazing ladies at Pearl's! They took on our requests and were great to collaborate with -- not a moment of stress or worry working with the event team and designer. We got lots of compliments on how delicious the cakes were and how amazing it looked. The tasting was very personalized and lots of fun. Thanks, Elizabeth, for hooking us up!!

me toppings and icings that don’t hold up well in the heat. I found this little, but important, detail very knowledgeable and much appreciated! The cakes were delivered right in time and everything tasted amazing of course! Will definitely recommend and use Pearl’s again.

ind a bakery. Pearl's was the first one we visited. On the spot, they did a tasting for us. We were so impressed that we didn't even go to another bakery. We locked them down more or less on the spot. They were accommodating and flexible regarding decorations as well, and they turned out beautifully! Our guests raved about the taste and appearance of the cupcakes, concluding that they were all great, but the apple pie cupcakes were the star of the show! Thank you Pearl's for a job well done!

ake Shoppe. Three weeks before the wedding we found out through the grapevine that the Charlottesville branch closed without notifying us. I called the Pearl’s in Richmond and they were kind enough to honor the contract and even deliver to our venue in Charlottesville. On top of that, the cake itself was so beautiful (see pics), exactly what we had hoped, and delicious on top of that! Thank you, Pearl’s!

’s. Although my cake design didn’t come out exactly as planned, the cupcakes were still delicious.

and going back for second slices of cake, with many of them asking who we had gotten it through. We can not rave enough about how much we loved working with them through the process, and how easy they made it for us during the panning process-(especially being we lived out of town and were planning from afar.). We can't wait to get our first year anniversary cake from them next year! (And a cupcake or two the next time we are in town! ;)

Pros: 1) Great selection of cupcake flavors. The tasting process was easy we were able to try numerous flavors for no charge before we booked them. 2) The process to make changes to our contract was easy. Sophia was a pleasure to work with during the planning process. 3) The price was very reasonable for the service and quality of goods that we received. 4) We also purchased a small cutting cake and the bakers made helpful suggestions as we were determining the design. 5) Pearl’s included a free “first anniversary” cutting cake as a “thank you” for booking them as a vendor. 6) The cupcakes were extremely fresh and delicious. Our guests could not stop raving about them! The cutting cake was equally as good and was decorated exactly as we had specified. Cons: 1) There’s only one. The delivery service forgot the cupcake display stands that we had rented for our wedding day. Fortunately, we caught them before they departed and they were able to rectify the issue shortly after by making a return trip back to our venue with the stands. This all occurred well before the reception, however, so ultimately this never became a big issue.

helpful throughout the entire process, from the tasting to the on-time day of delivery. Thanks Pearl's! We can't wait to get our 1 year anniversary cake too!

ose or trust anyone else for our wedding!

planned. Mary said that because its a holiday weekend even though we had agreed to pay and EXTRA $150 dollars to have it baked and delivered Sunday they won't do it. My only option was to pick up the cake Saturday, take it to the hotel (we live 2 1/2 away from Richmond), keep it in my hotel room, and us bring it to the venue the following day. What kind of suggestion is that?! We don't want to do that, and risk braking the cake. We called back and ask for deposit refund of $180 dollars, they said NO. We suggested to $180 dollars worth of cupcakes and they also said NO. They said we can only get the entire cake worth of cupcakes or no money back. This was the first and last time we contact them. I will never recommend them to anyone, specially to rely on them to supply a cake or any type of sweets for such an important event.

avorite flavor -- butterscotch with vanilla icing! Pearl's also made a half dozen vegan variety cupcakes for my husband's family members with dietary restrictions. We had so many compliments from our guests about how pretty the cupcakes looked and how great they tasted. We ordered way more than we needed for 70 guests but we had very few leftover cupcakes!

lace the order. Pearl's is the best!

n the entire world. Pearl's also offered us the opportunity to rent cupcake stands and they were absolutely beautiful. Even with the stand rental, we came in under budget for cake. We intentionally ordered more cupcakes than we needed since we were having 3 different varieties. One of our varieties was completely gone at the end of the night. And I was so excited to come home with extras. We served them at brunch the next morning and I have never seen kids so happy. Pearl's also gave us a gift certificate for an anniversary cake. They told us that they don't want anyone eating year-old cake. I love them and their amazing cakes.

availability and/or poor quality in cake, a friend recommended we try Pearls. I am so glad they did! The tasting was delightful and wagon to pick the flavor a we were most interested in. They were extraneous professional and delivery was not an issue (more rare than I anticipated in Richmond). The cake was beautiful, tasty, and on budget. Try the Irish cream with mocha frosting ;)

nning, and not just an accessory to me, the bride. They were a great price for what they offered, and delicious. I had multiple guests say they don't usually like cake, but they LOVED the ones we had. Multiple people also said that they ate a slice of each flavor (Candied Sweet Potato and Fancy - brown sugar rum cake with pear filling). Our GF guests also raved about the GF cupcakes we added on, and our two dairy allergy guests were blown away by the dairy-free cupcakes. It was so awesome that we were able to order just a handful of their GF and DF "cupcakes of the day" instead of having to order a whole dozen specially. I was also so happy that their cake setter uppers needed minimal instruction to put the flowers on it at the venue during set-up.

good the cupcakes were; guests could not have been happier. Our cutting cake was delicious and looked beautiful. We are frequent customers of Pearl’s and will continue coming back to get amazing sweets. Thank you for being a part of our special day!

erent flavors and each one was better than the one before it. Not to mention the display was perfection and exactly what we had in mind. The entire process of working with them was so seamless; it almost seemed too easy! All of our guests continue to rave about how delicious the cupcakes were and we could not agree more. The best part is they give you a gift certificate for you to come in and pick up the flavors from your day for your anniversary to ensure you do not miss out on the tradition of having cake from your wedding day on your first anniversary. Can't wait to continue going there for years to come!