I needed a birthday cake last Saturday and, as is my custom, I charted a course for Shuman's Bakery on South Washington Street in Old Town. It semed like an old fashioned, family owned, neighborhood business and I liked their birthday cakes. Much to my chagrin, I found that the location has been taken over by Firehook Bakery. And guess what, no more birthday cakes. Looks from now on, I will have to schlep a little further down the Parkway to Brenner's for birthday cakes.

I guess you are not considering baking one?

My better half and I went there last Saturday because we were getting gas across the road and saw the "Grand Opening" sign. In short, walked out after seeing absolutely no rhyme or reason to how they waited on customers, no great foccacias or anything that looked like what you see for example on Union St. and there were flies in the display case crawling on the croissants.
We went up the road and had breakfast at Wendy's. yeah, it was that bad. The place needs a complete make-over and a fly trap.

Brenner's has actually been sold in the past year or so. The new ownership is fine....but it's just not quite the same. I went to get a birthday cake a while back and they couldn't accomodate my request because their decorator wasn't going to be in that day. Maybe they've worked out some of the kinks since then.

The good news is that Brenner's is still there and they have cakes.

Sorry to report that the situation doesn't seem to have changed much since this was posted in June.

I was in there on Saturday, hoping for a loaf of their 7 grain bread to go with a late breakfast on a rainy morning. Well, it was total chaos, hard to tell who was doing what behind the counter, where one should stand to place an order, and the selection was really limited and did not include the bread I was looking for or anything even close.

I left (after getting the jackass that had blocked me in to move his car into a REAL parking space) and headed for the Union Street location, which is where I will be going from now on. It's a much calmer, more organized place AND they are better stocked - got that 7 grain and headed for home! I still wish they had kept the Fayette Street location open...