Celena’s Bakery

Went in for a brunch takeout. Service was nice. Décor is nice but both hot chocolates were barely warm and my chocolate croissant was under cooked. The almond one as fine. Would try it again but check things out before leaving.

We live in the neighbourhood so naturally we wanted to love this place. We needed a go to bakery but time after time the breads have been disappointing. Most recent loaf of sourdough was exactly that; dough. It wasn’t nearly cooked enough and when I went to cut into it the loaf was doughy throughout. Bummer. The muffins /​scones are ok as well as coffee.

A neighbourhood bakery within walking distance! Without a doubt, hands down, the best chocolate croissant I’ve ever had in my life. Thumbs up!

I ordered a carrot cake with cream cheese icing for my daughters baptism from this bakery. I put in the order on Tuesday and they were able to accommodate a pick up day on Friday! I thought that service was great.
The cake tasted absolutely fantastic. It was moist with three layers and cream cheese icing in between. They gave me the option of pecan, walnut or raisin in the cake. The cake looked really pretty and the icing was delicious.
The cake was priced well. I would order from them again.
The only reason I’m not giving them a 5 I’d because I’ve had better carrot cake in the city. What can I say, I know my carrot cakes.

awesome iced coffee! it actually has some sweetness to it unlike other places where its just coffee over ice.

Just can’t get excited about this place. I live nearby and so I go out of convenience more than it deserves.
The baked goods are 3 stars. Breads are good but you have to go early to get any. The coffee is terrible. Tastes like paper. And that’s what I go there for most often!
Pretty pricey too.
Service is a bit uninspired. I get the feeling that who ever owns the place is never there or takes a completely passive approach to the business. Needs a more active and inspired approach to management.
Too bad.

Baked goods very good, scones are to die for… but quite pricey in general.
Sitting area not great, coffee not great either.

I come here about once every week or two because I am addicted to their croissant BLT with aged cheddar. It is INCREDIBLE! The people who work here are also very friendly! Can’t wait to try their baked goods.

Celena’s is a bakery, and when I think of bakery, I think of the french word for it — boulangerie. In French there is a separate word for patisserie, and Celena’s definitely falls more into the boulangerie category. They are very fairly priced and their baked breads are so good. Equally good are their cookies. Their chocolate cake cookie (yes, chocolate cake MIXED INTO a cookie), is so amazing I dream about it sometimes, and I’m not that big of a cookie fan.
I have ordered a cake from them for my son’s birthday and the decoration of the cake was so-​so as I didn’t require too much, but wasn’t too pleased that I paid $ 5 extra for something that was so basically decorated, I could have almost done it myself. The cake is dense, moist and sweet. As my mother-​in-​law stated, «It tastes like a homemade cake».
Soups are homemade and I quite enjoy them. The sandwiches are fair. Their pies also have a homemade quality to them, and are priced right for what they are. Coffees are okay, but not a place where I’d really order something fancy.
All in all, a great asset to our neighbourhood and I hope they never leave!
To the poster who said their butter tart was disgusting, I’ve read that there are two types of butter tarts, the dense thick filling, and the gooey inside. Theirs falls into the latter category.

Like other reviewers, I really wanted to like this place! But I’m really surprised a bakery wouldn’t have a way to slice bread or offer freezer bags. The cashier seemed so annoyed by my asking for the bread sliced that it made me think she must get asked a lot. If customers keep asking, maybe you should get it! The bread was okay — the flavour was rather blunt and the texture a bit heavy.

Came here after reading blogto’s review. Croissants and danishes were ok. Nothing spectacular.

I went there on a Saturday, and was pretty happy with my purchase. I loved the danish, and cranberry muffin, but the apple turnover had very little filling.
The pastry dough was super delicious in both the danish and apple turnover — very buttery. I’ll be back!
Celena was the one that served me and was very nice!

Cakes– YES!
Brownies– HELL Yeah!
Cookies– WANT MORE!
Brie Sandwiches– They send me into a carb coma but YES
Buns and Bread– Pretty Yummy

went there after I read BlogTO stating they had great danishes. Ordered a danish, a butter tart and a mini quiche.
The danish was alright. The fruit in the middle was quite tasty but the outer rim of the danish was rock hard. The certer part was fluffy, soft and tasted quite nice and buttery. The butter tart was horrible. It looked really good but when I bit into it, the center portion, (which is supposed to be of a dense, thick texture) literally poured out of the tart and all over the ground. It had the consistancy of water! Butter tart centers are thick. Not this one. It was water. sugar water. Really not good at all.
The quiche was OK. I think I was so disturbed by the butter tart that I couldn’t enjoy the quiche.
I will try the bakery again but certainly not the butter tarts.

Holy guacamole… checked this place out with my Dad a few weeks back. Nice and toasty in there! Daily soup is fantastic, comes with a nice fresh bun. The pizza is a generous portion, more than enough for two people, and I would argue they could charge more, but hey! That’s their business. Not a meat eater, however my bf says the cornish pasties are fantastic. The cake cookie is insane. This coming from a normally non-​cookie loving person. Sometimes it’s hard to get a seat for the wifi peeps nursing a coffee at a table, and the stroller folks in the neighbourhood. It’s a good experience, but I have other favorites in the ‘hood, so that’s why I can’t say 5 stars.

Given the number of bakeries, cafes and coffee shops that are now in the area, the folks at Celena’s are going to have to step up their game.
Really nice toppings on their little pizzas and certainly affordable, but they really need to work on all of their bread-​like offerings. The pizza as well as the breads and buns we’ve tried have all been underbaked.
Nice cookies, but nothing extraordinary.
Too many better choices within a block’s walk to bother going back.

Family run café…

So after my Friday mom group I heard that there was a new café that all the moms frequent after wards so my friends and I headed over there strollers in tow.
First of all why this is a hot spot for moms is beyond me since there is hardly anywhere to put a stroller and no where to change your kid in the bathroom (quickly found out when my friend’s 6 month old had a poonami).
So the three of us crowded around a table for two and we each ordered a sandwich and drink. I ordered a green tea latte while my other friend ordered a mocha. Not even close. My friend tasted hers and turned her nose saying that it didn’t even taste like coffee — it just tasted like frothed warm milk, whereas mine tasted just like coffee but with a tea bag floating in it. Gross.
So we went back to the barista and told her that the drinks didn’t taste right. They then decided to argue with my friend saying that her mocha was right despite the fact that there was obviously NO coffee in her drink — it was pure white, and that that is how you make a green tea latte: with a shot of espresso.
Now I’m an avid tea drinker, I don’t touch coffee, and let me tell you: that is NOT how you make a make a tea latte unless you want a disgusting one. I told her that that is obviously not how you make one because wouldn’t the coffee drown out the taste of the tea thus making the whole point of having tea in it useless in the first place? She begrudgingly made it over again.
If it wasn’t for my yummy brie and cranberry sandwich the whole experience would have been a write off. If its one thing I know for sure — its not to sit there and fight with the customer especially when you know you’re in the wrong, or even when you’re in the right, because customers always know best. Especially mothers who need their caffeine fix. Don’t fuck with those ones. They’ll cut you.

I really want to like this place because it is an oasis in a sea of dead end businesses and it is close to home. The place is now crowded with folks on a saturday, so I feel a bit better about sharing my hesitations about this place. You might love it, and I hope you will. But I really don’t like a croissant with enough heft to hold a door open or a hamburger bun that weighs as much as a hamburger. Everything is really fresh and made with love. The place is nicely decorated and a comfortable place to grab a cup. But I just find that I don’t really like the coffee and that all the baking is quite literally very heavy.
I hope that over time, the croissants will become light and flakey and I intend to keep going here every so often to see how things are progressing.

A new bakery opened in my neighbourhood so naturally I needed to see the inner-​workings of this place and went to the grand opening (which seemed more like a soft launch/​private party that I was crashing). In any case, I didn’t stay.
Fast forward 2 weeks later to a lazy Sunday where I popped in for a hot chocolate. The seating area is adorable with a nice book shelf on the side which houses their jams. The bakery is painted with a bright and friendly yellow accompanied with lovely artwork on the walls. They offer freshly baked breads as well as sweets which sit in display trays on the counter. They also bake everything on site — top drawer. The kitchen is exposed the way I’ve always fantasized my bakery to look like. Colour me a little jealous.
I ordered a brownie and a hot chocolate. Though the hot chocolate was the blandest I’ve ever tasted, the brownie was really good — a little cakier then I’m used to but nice. Unfortunately I had to still drink the hot «chocolate» to wash it down.
I would definitely come here again to try their other baked goodies. I might even try the hot chocolate again — maybe the machine was just on its period today.