Merritt Bakery

I unfortunately didn’t get to try their burger because it took over 15 min and I had to catch my bus. I’m not sure how they survive really. That was your I let chance with me.

Surprised me. Didn’t notice it wasnt Kwiqway. And loved Merritt bakery thru the years for cakes and fried chicken.
I like soup and they had a great chicken rice soup. Asian chicken salad was good as well. Cheese burger fries and onion ring eaters had no complaints as well
I will be back !

Overpriced food and bakery, not worth it!
Horrible Management!
very RUDE manager!!!

if this place didn’t have such a perfect location, they would be out of business. THE STAFF IS LOUSY. I placed a to go order, hamburger, onion rings, chix caesar & 2 sodas, $ 28, NOT CHEAP. Yet the staff thinks they don’t have to fill a to go order with any forks and they gave us ketchup packets, some opened already the other sticky and messy. The order taker didn’t like being interrupted from picking her teeth. Just because it’s convenient DOESN’T MAKE IT GOOD. Stop spending your hard earned money on LOUSY SERVICE and mediocre food.

they are not closed! i just bought my strawberry cake there!!! still delicious!

Always good service — call ahead and you don’t have to wait! Food is good for quick and go, with fantastic fried chicken!

After the restaurant shut down at the old location awhile back, my family and i were saddened that we can no longer get their chocolate dream cake. Then we learned they open at the current location. So this weekend we stopped by and picked up their cake we have eatened for a decade or more, and were so glad the recipe is still the same. It tasted awesome. Oh yeah, i saw the same lady that used to worked at in the old location.
Only thing i didnot like was you have to order it from the small window at the old kwik burger joint. But i learned from the lady that they will have a better store in the future so we will wait.

It was kind of sad to see Lake merritt restaurant closed and changed locations to a drive through. I use to go to Lake Merritt restaurant with my Grandparents and I remember loving the chicken and pink iced cookies. I was probably six then though.
I came to the drive through and they have outdoor benches which is nice. Only one table had an umbrella which usually would be ok since Oakland rarely gets too hot but the day I came here was scorching and with no shade made it miserable.
No more pink iced cookies but they do have small cakes. I tried the strawberry and it was pretty good. I also got a chicken dinner which came with two sides and biscuits. I got a side salad and potatoes. The chicken was pretty good and not greasy but the potatoes did not taste fresh at all and tasted very much like a KFC or other fast food mash potato. The side salad was also just ok and the biscuits tasted like they were three days old and not freshly made.
I ended up packing food to go and driving somewhere else because a homeless man sat at the next table to me and started non stop gagging and smoking a cigarette. Usually I would offer food but I just about lost my food by his gagging noises. I decided to go to a better location for atmosphere. Fortunately the chicken was made very fresh and hot so when I drove somewhere else my chicken still tasted good. I probably would not come back here again and I prefer Everett Jones in Oakland for chicken and ribs.

the service was great.
the ambience was fun.
the prices were not fun.
the fried chicken was edible, but not the best.
the obviously pre-​frozen fries were double meh.
the verdict: just no.
note: this was my first time trying merritt bakery; i might be willing to give it another go once their flagship is done getting spruced up.

Sorry Merritt Bakery you need to move back to the old location Kwik! Lemon Meringue pie sucked big time! Prolly sat too long in the display. Sticker shock on your to go items ~7 $ plus for a simple burger? that was just meh? You can’t charge sit down restaurant prices for the product your providing! Fried chicken is all that I would go for these days! Any one else feel the same?

Overpriced. I’m not a cheapskate when it comes to my gastronomic inclinations, but I’m not a sucker either. I don’t mind breaking open my wallet for quality. I grew up on Merritt Fried Chicken and this ain’t it. It looked like it, it even smelled like it. But one bite and I knew that wasn’t the stuff I grew up on. The gravy tasted like soap. And they forgot my strawberry cake! Even though I saw the lady at the window box it up, it didn’t make it’s way in the bag. 32 bucks for 8 pieces of flavorless chicken, side of mashed w/​gross gravy and a piece of cake that I didn’t even get? This ain’t progress.

I’ve been here 3 different times and I’m loving it! This new location has the same great food and selection as their old location! – some of the familiar faces still work there too! The burgers are delicious! Had breakfast there last weekend out on the patio with my honey and my dog Ziggy. I had the bacon, eggs and grits. It was sooo good! My honey had the chicken n waffles — absolutely delicious! And they make really good coffee too! Nice spot to sit and chill solo or with your dog and your honey or friends!

(Reminding myself: always start with something positive to say about a place…)
Can be nice during good weather (the only seating is outdoors). If they ever get busy, perhaps not enough picnic tables, but we did get a whole one to ourselves and enjoyed people-​watching there along Lake Park Ave.
The employees who took our order were very nice.
Didn’t realize, until a friend told me, that this is the temporary spot for Merritt Bakery as their regular building further down the lake is having some work done (true as of June 2015? Not sure).
We made the mistake of ordering some hamburgers. $ 17 later we were left with a very mediocre culinary experience.
…there are other places nearby that do burgers MUCH better for the same price (or less).
In fact, we had gone to The Alley (a nearby bar with a kitchen) around the corner first, but due to some of their own remodeling, they aren’t serving their excellent burgers again until August (2015).
We imagined that a simple burger from Merritt Bakery would fill the void; boy were we wrong.
Remember the really lousy burgers you may have had at your elementary school’s cafeteria? Well, this is just an adult-​sized version of those. Lousy quality beef; gummy tasting buns, and overall; no flavor. We were even asked how we liked it prepared, to which we said; «medium-​rare» but they were cooked the same gray consistency of «done-​ness» throughout when we got them. This leads us to believe that the question was merely a nicety than something they could deliver on.
In general, I love that Merritt Bakery exists, and I have often bought cookies, and occasionally a cake from them. However, all of my non-​bakery food experiences with Merritt Bakery have been not so great. This is the first time I felt drawn to write about it, particularly since this current location was once a burger stand. Seemingly Merritt has always have higher prices than the quality of their food actually reflects. Their management would do well to compare and contrast the quality and cost of any and all hamburgers at places near their new current location.
In future, I will remind myself to just get a cookie or two from them and stay away from their food.
If Merritt Bakery’s cakes and such sell and people like them, great. Keep that up.
However, this is a great opportunity for Merritt to improve their food, at the very least their hamburgers, since this location can/​would provide many more customers if they get it right.

Opening up a satellite bakery was brilliant. Taking over the old Kwikway near Lakeshore will give them more foot traffic and exposure. The customer wins out b/​c the prices are actually cheaper than I remember from their flagship restaurant, especially for fried chicken.
Just be prepared that they still seem to be working out the bugs. The staff is a bit green and seemed harried after Saturday Farmer’s Market crowd came through. Still, I’ll be back.

Don’t pay very close attention to the menu! When we tried to order, we were told many of the items were unavailable. Go figure.
Also, be sure to wash up before you come because there are NO RESTROOMS!!!

Merritt Bakery is at Kwik Way’s old spot while their space is being remodeled.
menu: breakfast, burgers, cakes, cookies, sammies, fried chicken, etc. (guessing the original menu is available here).
eats: minipak (6.88)-bread, 2 pieces chicken, and ½ salad
–potato salad not available, took greens w/​caesar dressing
mostly iceberg lettuce with a tomato slice and croutons.
croutons salty, salad average
–thigh and breast pieces moist but not juicy, skin with breading almost brunt, not edible.
chicken taste the same as decades ago.
crumbs:
–pretty good service, very average food, if available.

I knew the Kwik Way closed abruptly, but I did not expect Merritt Bakery to take over the site.
My husband and I were in the Lakeshore Avenue area to take care of some business at the Sprint store. It’s not easy to find street parking around these businesses, so we parked the car in the lot between Bank of America and Merritt Bakery.
The waiting area in front of the business is relatively clean, not super clean, but that is to be expected since it is a basically a food to go venue. There are two to three large menus posted on their large plate glass windows. The side glass window has a display of assorted custom made cakes (huge burger, carton of French fries, watermelon, etc.). I did not see any tables and/​or chairs for sit down dining. Two refrigerated cases have whole and sliced cakes, pies, side salads. Cappuccino machine and stacks of cups are on the left of the order windows. Cookies, packaged biscotti and Madeleines, muffins and croissants are displayed on counter space.
Eats/​beverages: breakfast croissant or burrito, burgers, fries, hot grilled sandwiches, soup/​chili, salads, fried chicken, chicken strips, cappuccino (from machine), sodas, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, shakes, malts, floats. Sides: mac ‘n cheese, grits, sweet potato fries, macaroni salad, potato salad, mashed potato & gravy, dinner rolls, etc.
Sweets/​desserts: cakes (whole or sliced), pies, cookies, croissants, muffins, brownies, packaged biscotti, packaged Madeleines.
Dinner special: baby back ribs for $ 11.50.
Service: not terribly fast, but friendly employees.
Our to go order: Club sandwich — roast turkey with BLT. Chili cheese fries. Club sandwich was delish, except roast turkey was a tad salty (3.5 stars). Chili cheese fries were so-​so — edible, but not memorable. (3 stars). Total price: $ 19.35 (tax included).
Return trips: Husband, his club sandwich and possibly the burger; me, the mini-​pack fried chicken special and a slice of strawberry square cake.
The rating remains at 3 stars at this time, pending future visits (at least 2 more times) for deciding whether I will upgrade the 3 stars to 4 stars.

So sad to say this place is not at all Kwik Way.
Okay, enough with the rhyming!
Generally I give a place 3 chances to impress me. I had 3 consecutive experiences that left a bad taste in my mouth.
1. Burger– I don’t eat much meat but I troed a burger. It wasn’t terrible but not worth that price. I’d rather go around the corner to FlipSide for the price.
2. Fried chicken — I eat poultry less often than red meat. I’m not a KFC fan either. I wondered whether there was a problem with the oil. So, I tried the onion rings which were ok.
3. Reuben — Ick. This wasn’t robust and flavorful. Only one half had Russian dressing. The saurkraut was flaccid and bland. There was too much meat.
They have 3 stars and not 2 for the following reasons:
1. Pies are lovely here. I am not a huge fan of their cakes as the single square I got was — vintage, to put it very gently. Pies are amazing enough for me to ignore the cake experience.
2. I don’t often eat meat other than fish. This makes me wonder whether I had any business ordering it in the first place. I plan to avoid ordering red meat or poultry here. don’t think I’ll order any more meat items here again. I am very «Princess & the Pea» about embracing my inner omnivore.
To conclude, I am optimistic about trying their non-​meat & non-​cake options. I really want to like this.

I was initially sad it’s not Kwik Way anymore… but the food was good… delicious fried chicken sandwich and deluxe club sandwich.

Merritt Bakery will soon open in this historic location which was once home to the Kwik Way Drive-​In, and later the Park Way. This sister restaurant to the larger Merritt Bakery location on the East side of the lake will offer tradition baked goods such as are found at their larger location, and possibly some sandwiches and fried chicken.
They have done a decent job of cleaning up the property, installing new security cameras and parking lot lights as that parking lot has been a hotbed for criminal; activity for years.
I hope they do a good business and keep that parking lot clean and under control!