World Class Bakers was in my life for a while before I knew it. Because my shortbread- loving friend was going crazy for the gigantic shortbread cookies at Tan Coffee on West Queen West. Alyssa hung a show there last week and paid my shortbread-loving friend to help her. Paid her in gigantic shortbread cookies.
So I finally tried these Tan Coffee cookies this week, and the kind young men behind the counter told me they came from World Class Bakers, which is right up the street from me. So with our shortbread friend in tow, Alyssa and I go up there for lunch.
Sure enough, we see the familiar cookies in their original environment. They come in cranberry or chocolate chip for $1.60. Beyond being bigger than "regular" shortbread, they have a taste of salt, which is really nice, especially in the chocolate chip. They also taste more buttery than usual, if that's even possible. Bites of cranberry are a bit sour, which makes them less heavy and easier to eat the whole thing and then some. Furthermore, you can get mini shortbread cookies for $0.75. I love it when food comes miniature.
There's lots of fine looking bread and bagels. The pizzas look great. Unfortunately, right after we finished eating sandwiches a man called out "fresh pizza!" and dumped a new batch of personal sized pies in the display case. I would have had the pizza if that had happened twenty minutes earlier.
Twenty minutes earlier, I'd ordered a toasted Western on homemade rye bread and Alyssa ordered a grilled cheese on thin slices of buttery, toasted, homemade whole wheat bread. My shortbread friend had turkey on rye. All the bread was fresh and delicious, but we would probably take it home and make our own sandwiches next time. Our sandwiches cost around $5.00 each and it just wasn't worth it. I'd rather buy a couple loaves of bread for that price (or lots of miniature cookies).
We split a great cherry cheese danish ($2.25) which would have been nice with a quality cup of coffee. World Class unfortunately serves Seattle's Best, which is pretty mediocre. It's a shame because the atmosphere is nice (including the service - very kind) and they have free Internet, so I'd like to hang around in there and do some work. But I wouldn't want to drink too much of that coffee. I guess could eat the mini shortbread for a couple hours. That would make for a good day.
Photos by Alyssa Bistonath
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WCB is my local bakery/cafe stop, their smartie cookies are great! Definitely a nice environment to get some work done with the free internet as well. Recommended!
wow I have to go there... like NOW
can I mention how much I would LOVE a giant shortbread cookies?
the ones at letteri are good but expensive!!!
Tried the oversized shortbread cookies the other night and let me tell you, the writer does not exagerate. These things are heavenly. The only thing that might be better at WCB is their carrot cake -- and I say that as someone who is generally anti-carrot cake.
Another reason to support WCB: They got dealt a shitty hand. They bought the place from a below average bread store. Re-did the whole store over several years while overcoming some rumoured financial issues. Then as soon as they were to open Starbucks plopped down across the street in an old bank and a little after that Second Cup moved in a few doors down. In spite of all that, WCB looks like it's doing well for itself.
This is also my local bakery/cafe shop - the rugelach (pictured under the cheese danish) is VERY tasty!
I used to devour their chocolate croissants on a weekly basis, but they changed the recipe sometime last year - what used to be light and airy, I now find them too greasy and heavy.
And I don't mind the coffee so much - I order their lattes, and they always take great care (and time) to make it properly for me. (Perhaps they use a different type of bean?)
Do you have any photos of the bakery from the outside so I know what I'm looking for if I'm whizzing past it? How about one of the inside so that we can see the space?
Delightful...been there...going to start jogging to and from however, they're going to make me fatter than the guy at the pizza store a few blocks away.
Click on the link to their website at the top of the post...
Andy, it's right AT the intersection of St Clair & Christie - facing the beginning of Christie St (so much so that a car once even went through the window).
I remember about 6 years ago, I lived in the area close to world class bakers and we went in when it first opened. I was not impressed at all, the bread was not fresh, i think we had some dessert but it was not great by any stretch of the imagination. I have not been back since. Maybe it has improved?
TAN Coffee is well worth a visit...and not just for the shortbread! TAN is all about the COFFEE, ethically sourced high quality green beans, expertly hand roasted in the cafe. Marilyn and Chris and great baristas and finish every drink - even the macchiato! - wth a latte art rosetta, not easy! The bake great croissants and muffins too.
I think it's long past the point where we need to see the phrase " WORLD CLASS. " again. It's so tired.
I got to WCB from time-to-time for the free Internet. It is just up the street from me. The cookies are awesome. The cakes are Dufflet. Apparently they make their own cheesecake, but I find it's a bit dry.
Everything is a bit expensive, except for the breakfast. They do make good breakfast.
There Banana bread is NO JOKE. We live in the neighbourhood and my mom's been buying it for YEARS, and she's gotten her friends hooked...I don't eat banana's and have never touched the stuff, but I've taken a WCB loaf to parties and watched ppl DEVOUR it...a family friend now makes regular trips from her north york/scarborough home to buy a bunch of loaves, then she freezes them, and serves them at parties/family gatherings etc.....bought a loaf to take to a friend's place last night, and decided to have a slice...I ate it with butter...WOW...then I had another slice with cheese...AMAZING...now I'm hooked.
*ouch* I mean "their" not "there"...sorry!
World class bakers is an okay place to do work, but their coffee (Seattle's Best) is terrible and refills are full price. Perhaps the biggest issue I have with the place are the staff. The old ladies that run the store are bizarre: sometimes confused, other times they fight with each other, and other times they act like I am putting a dagger in their back by asking them to pour me a coffee. The owner (I guess...) is some loud, fat jerk who I find to be rude.
I hate Starbucks, but I'll gladly spend my money there as opposed to this place.
I have to STRONGLY DISAGREE with most of the posts here. There is nothing world class about the place. The owner is a HUGE FAT COW BEEYATCH and the staff is new about every week because she pays them like crap and treats them even worse.
The baked goods are mostly miss with a few hits. Nothing terrible, but mostly average at best. They can't even afford to fix their bread slicer which cuts razon thin slices except for about 3 of the saw blades which are broken and therefore you will get double and triple-slices in every loaf.
The best thing is that you can sit and steal their wireless signal but i'd rather do that at starbucks. Should be renamed World Ass Bakers.
I have to agree with you on the lack of customer service at WCB. The workers are really rude and lack customer service. A friend of mine ran across the street for a starbucks coffee and came back over to buy a bagel and the fat cow wouldn't let him into the store because he had the coffee!!!!!! I will never support them again and I tell everyone I mean everyone to not go here.
The most horrible and scary owner ever! Same thing happened to me. I went in there with my mother and father (father had just finished drinking his coffee from Mcdonalds - hey it was a free coffee and there was nothing in the cup!) My mother was just about to throw the empty cup in the garbage when the owner (some really crazy scary dude) screamed and freaked at my mother! She told him the Mcdonalds cup was empty that she was just about to throw it out - she was just resting from the walk to his bakery, and the owner wouldn't hear it! He kept screaming and telling us how he owned the place blah blah - it was horrible. Everyone in the bakery was scared, even the cashier was getting hell from him and she kept apologizing non stop - just WOW... I will never ever set foot in there and have told all my friends about this horrible incident. One doesn't have to be so rude! The owner could have come up to my mother and said (I'm sorry,there is no outside food or drinks allowed in here - I'm the owner) everything would have been fine.
St. Clarity is pretty much right on the mark. The owner treats her staff like SHITE. She's foul, rude, insensitive, and all around bat-shite crazy. Her workers are all basically terrified of her and she's freely admitted to creating a culture of fear in order to keep them from revolting or asking for raises. This one girl told me she hadn't gotten a raise in THREE years! It's majorly effed. One time, she almost broke out into a physical fight with one of the women working in the back. She was forcibly shoving her and calling her all sorts of nasty names and saying things like, "Get outta my store, b*tch, I don't want you here!" for all the customers and staff to hear. But she'll never fire anyone. Oh no. She doesn't want to deal with the hassle of potentially wrongfully firing someone. She'll say things like, "If you don't like how I run things, you know where the door is," so that you're essentially quitting, and she can't be blamed. The hilarious part is that almost everyone who works there is non-white so someone COULD possibly make the claim that she's a racist wretch who hires people who would be more inclined to take her bullshit. I'm just sayin...
Her boyfriend, this large, doughy, Peter Griffin lookin SOB, pretends he owns the place, when in reality he has zero ownership, and routinely walks behind the counter to grab himself cookies or make himself a sandwich (without using tongs or gloves, because really, who needs to be sanitary when you're the "owner" haha) and honestly, it's just filthy.
The store itself is beautiful and the atmosphere is really casual. The hot food is really good (the lentil soup is amazeballs) and the pastries are decent. It's just a shame that the owner is a bi-polar psycho betch, and should basically be put down. For realz.
I'm astonished to see all the negative comments toward the end of this post - I've been going to WCB for years and never had any sort of unpleasant experience with any of the staff, including the owner. She's always been nice to me and has more than once gone out of her way to find my favourite type of muffin back in the kitchen when there weren't any more up front.
And on the topic of those muffins, since no one's mentioned those yet: the chocolate chip muffins are the best I've had anywhere. A lot of places seem to just use some kind of generic muffin batter and sprinkle chocolate chips on top, but the ones at WCB have a ton of chocolate chips all through them, and are really moist and delicious. Super decadent.
Also, I second all the praise for the shortbread. And on the real-food front, I'm very fond of the spinach and rapini calzones.
I agree the coffee's kind of mediocre, though. If you want better coffee, head west a couple of blocks to Ellington's.