Carvel Ice Cream Bakeries

I will start by saying that I have always gone to this Carvel to buy cakes. The owner is kind, his wife, not so much. I went with my 3 children to get the free cones for customer appreciation day. When I entered, there were people dining in the Mario the Baker area but no one was being served in the ice cream section. I approached the counter and asked the wife if their store was participating in the free cone day. She responded that they were but only soft serve chocolate or vanilla, not mixed! So as I asked my children what they wanted, not even 5 seconds passed and she told me, «you need to hurry up because I don’t have the time to wait!» I let her know that we were going to another Carvel and walked out. We will not be returning. The one on Miller and 93^rd was amazing! We were greeted with smiles and they gave us a mixed flavor option!

This is my go to place for my favorite birthday cakes or any-​occasion cakes for the whole family! I had never taken the time to write any reviews for them BUT after all the negative comments I had to try and shed some good light on them! And yes, I’m giving them 5 stars for their ice cream cakes (only)!!! I have been picking up cakes from this Carvel for the past 15 years and I’m completely honest when I say the cakes get better and better and I don’t even know how because they already taste AMAZING! I’ve been to a few other Carvel’s just to check them out and the cakes are never as creamy or fresh. I once had to throw out a cake from a Carvel in Coral Gables that has since closed down. It tasted like cardboard… YUCK!
My usual Carvel cake runs start in February with 2 birthdays that month, next March and in April there are 3 birthdays so if a cake is not fresh or taste like it’s been sitting in a freezer for weeks or months, I’ll know. I’ve never had any complaints! I now live in Homestead and still drive down to this Carvel for the best ice cream cakes in town. And no, I really don’t eat any other specialties they offer. Just their yummy CAKES!!!

Bad service: ordered the Wednesday Carvel special «buy 1 get 1 free» ice cream Sundae special. Staff said that wasn’t today (yet the sign is there & today is Wednesday) then they said they cleaned the machine to not give the promotion.
Should not be representing Carvel.

Worst service ever! I asked to try the ice cream and she rolled her eyes at me. She gave it to me and the ice cream tasted freezer burn! Disgusting, never again!

Wow!!! Worst store ever. I went in to the Mario the baker Carvel store on 4^th of July by accident given that it had a strong ice cream craving and no other place was open.
For starters the place is completely filthy. Now I have reviewed «Mario the baker» before… And I hate how much this trip completely ruined that experience for me. I will be updating that review as well. I mean the store looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in years.
Just as my boyfriend and I commented how filthy the store was, gentleman sitting in a table close by told me «turn around carefully» there right behind me A HUGE COCKROACH! Wtf!!!
I ordered the salted caramel Heath ice cream in a waffle cone with pound cake crumbles. how do you fck this up??? IceCream tasted like it had been left in my grandmothers freezer with the top removed for a solid two moves before being served.
The waffle cone must have been sitting there longer then a few days because it was stale as a a week old load of Cuban bread, I’m also convinced I chipped my tooth on a piece of pound cake.
Overall WORST ice cream experience of my life. On my way to McDonald’s for soft serve

I show up after dinner craving Carvel’s signature treat, the Carvelanche. It was 8:30 and the store closed at 10pm, so I had plenty of time. I waited behind a mother and her son while the employee yelled to the back for his partner to come help. The employee then went back to grab his partner who was prob smoking and was listening to music on his phone. I asked him what flavors they had for soft served ice cream, and his smart comment was «none». I asked why and he said he already cleaned it and turned it off. He then proceeded to tell me he does not get paid to work past 10 pm so he shuts down the soft serve ice cream at 8:30 all the time. I asked him if they always close it at 8:30 and the dumb teenager says «when I work I close it at 8:30, but the manager usually keeps it on till ten». Need less to say I will never be coming back here again and the manager either needs to fire this worthless employee or they need to make sure they do the job they were hired to do correctly.
To add to insult, the Carvel shares the small space with Mario the Baker Pizza. The place had a weird smell similar to decaying meat and there were plates and half eaten pizza all over the tables.
I left the Carvel and went to Cold Stone down the road. The place was packed and the service was great. Guess they inherited all the unhappy Carvel customers.

Good ice cream. Not great, but still good and resonable priced compared to all the gelato stores in Miami.

I once ordered some ice cream with crushed oreos well before closing time and the guy was so annoyed he tossed his cleaning towel on the toppings, realized what he did after serving me a scoop of something crappy and not soft serve and taking it off and then putting on some oreos. He commenced yelling at me afterwards, because I did not want oreos that had been covered with a towel, probably being used to clean kids fudgy, nosepicking fingerprints, coughed up bacteria and other not so pleasant relics of the day. For a more thorough understanding of why I think Carvel sucks, please read below:
I grew up eating the Carvel parfait. It was the ultimate treat when my parents would buy them and I dug my way down to the delicious little pool of syrup waiting at the bottom of the skinny plastic glass. After they discontinued them I graduated on to the Carvalanche, which is great, even if they stole the idea from McDonald’s McFlurry. Fortunately for Carvel, their successful covert campaign of disinformation and degradation has led to a south Florida McDonald’s culture without the ability or self-​confidence to make a proper McFlurry. They just put the ice cream and cookies, or whatever topping you choose, into a cup and think you’re paying extra money for that weird trapezoidal spoon. If you kindly remind them to please whip it, they tell you they don’t know how to ram a spoon into a machine specifically made to have that spoon easily and quickly rammed into it… but I digress. Points for Carvel, though not really.
So Carvel’s sunk in quality since it’s parfait heydey when I would have given it 5 stars, probably one more star than my age at the time. To add insult to nostalgic inner-​child injury, if you ever show up within one hour of Carvel’s closing time, they have begun to «clean» their machines and you cannot order any soft-​serve or mixed ice cream treats (read: signature items) If you need a breakdown, I provide it below
5 Stars — Carvel invents, masters and provides me with parfaits. Monopoly of crunchies on ice cream. I love Carvel!
–1 Star — They remove the parfait
–1 Star– Quality goes down.
–1 Star– successful covert campaign of disinformation and degradation against McDonald’s McFlurries operators (Operation McSuckies)
–1 Star– They stop serving the things Carvel is well known for typically an hour before closing time.