Specialty’s Café & Bakery

Last time I was there, couple of days ago; was my last one; first time the food was awesome until noticed the food quality and even the time to provide it got worse. My last experience they lost my order, never made it, lost almost my lunch time from work and the sandwiches that I got at the end was just not okay not even the freebie and the soup had made my change my opinion. Better go when there’s no rush time but believe me it will not make such a difference they are getting sloppy!
Good luck getting what you want! I will go somewhere else that care about there job and the food!

Review is not for this specific store but for the whole company. Their online ordering has limited items. I wanted to order some latte. During checkout, you can leave your number so they text you when the order is ready for pickup. Never received that text! You can’t even call the store directly! The main phone number provided is useless when you have to wait forever like you’re calling AT&T customer service. They ended up substituting my actual order with something else since they ran out of brownies which was fine but for someone else, that might not fly and just waste more time.

2^nd time in 2 months I got a surprise of a long black hair in my sandwich. Was willing to look past the first time, but not the 2^nd. No time to return, so will take my business elsewhere in the future.

Great sandwich !! Awesome order online and ready to pick up service.
Haven’t tried the salads yet but plan to.
I’m making this my go to when I’m working near by

If you order on-​line, check your bag before you leave. They often make mistakes. The Spicy Asian salad is advertised as coming with peanuts — not true. Halft the time there are no nuts or they substitute walnuts.

We appreciated the very friendly ladies working the counter when we visited this morning. The croissants were wonderful! They were out of coffee cake which was a little disappointing but we enjoyed what we ordered. I’m very appreciative of good customer service and they were on their A game!

After looking online for a place to find a good soup option I visited Specialty’s. Sadly they only had one soup available, vegan chili. Blah.
The cookies were fresh and alluring in the face of eating bland chili. I picked up a few for my co-​workers and found myself subject to quite the sticker shock — $ 2.79 a cookie? Are you for real?
So disappointed.

I had to wait to order for a while because a girl was filling the coffee machines. When I finally was able to order, I asked if they made regular sandwiches, or if I had to order off the menu. The girl told me they could do other sandwiches.
I order a ham and turkey with swiss, mayo and mustard. She then took a good ten minutes to enter my order. When it was done, my sandwich cost approximately twelve dollars.
It turns out that to enter a non-​specialty sandwich, they ring up a specialty (in my case a loaded turkey sandwich) and «hold» everything you don’t want. So she rang up a loaded turkey sandwich, «hold» everything but the turkey.
She then added my ham and swiss as «extras» to the full-​sized turkey, at an additional charge of five dollars.
So, I would up paying 12 dollars for a sandwich with almost all the ingredients missing, that normally cost seven.
She then got a manager who explained to me that there was no way to ring it up otherwise. She withdrew the 79 cents for my cheese, but still charged me $ 4 for ham.
All and all it took nearly 20 minutes to order, I was charged nearly the price of two sandwiches for a sandwich that had half the ingredients of a «specialty».
The sandwich itself was small. I worked out it cost me about two bucks per bite.
Terrible corporate food trying to disguise itself as a real deli. You’re better off eating Wendy’s.

Specialty’s baked goods are great, but I’ve never had a consistently more awkward ordering experience. The whole process is set up for ordering online, apparently, because there is never someone attending the baked goods display, so you have to figure out the right person to give your order to. Sometimes it’s the barista, who then tells your order to someone else and who may or may not ring up your order. Other times you just have to snag someone rushing around behind the counter. Then, you wait in a crowded front-​of-​house area the size of a walk-​in closet, dodging other customers and, at least for me, never feeling comfortable. They have a Rube Goldberg-​esque electronic ordering system in the restaurant, but it’s slow and, during the one time I tried it, ineffective. The item I happened to order was sold out, but the automated system had already charged my card, so at the counter I had to ask for a refund. It’s a hassle for everyone that could have been avoided if I had ordered from a live person.
The place is popular, and I really enjoy their food, but I never feel good whenever I leave the establishment. The genius of the mom and pop bakeries/​cafés, like Caffe Senso Unico on Olive, is that they make it easy to pop in and pop out for a quick order. Specialty’s is not that place.

My company sent me to our Seattle office within the first couple of months of me starting work. I had never been to Seattle before but when when I stepped into downtown, it was like I was back in San Francisco. There was even a man playing the Chinese violin outside the LINK station just like the one I see daily at the BART station at home. Since I arrived at lunch time, 90% of the office was out. Since nobody was at the office, I decided to take the opportunity & wander around.
Towards the end of my wander, I needed food & this looked like a good place to start. I got the Goat cheese berry salad which was fresh & delightful but it really was quite standard. Also, the focaccia bread was quite salty.
When I was waiting for my food, I noticed 2 really cool things. First, the computerized ticketing system prints out a sticker with the the order & the name on the order. This made the pre-​paid orders really easy to distinguish as they sit on the shelf waiting to be picked up. Second, there are 2 iPads for automated ordering; it even remembers people’s orders by credit card number… which seems a little much.

I spend a ridiculously amount of money at this place… mostly out of convenience. I have their website saved on my phone so I can utilize their order on-​line, pick up in person 15 minutes later feature. You pay online, so all you have to do is find it on the shelf and you’re good to go. When you’re working those 10 hour days with a lunch break over halfway through… this is a good thing to encounter. The last thing you want to do is stand in line, staring at the pastry case and ordering that cookie you didn’t need… or is it?
The item I order 90% of the time is their turkey cranberry sandwich. It is accompanied with sprouts, lettuce, sunflower seeds, and mayo on sourdough bread (get it toasted… like I should even have to remind you). Definitely their best menu item!
I have tried their salads. They are huge. Order a small unless you want a very large amount of cabbage (unfortunately that is the filler they have chosen to go with).
Their soups are generally pretty good. If you do the order out option they can sometimes be cold, but you can easily pop their soup containers in the microwave for a quick zap. I like their vegetarian chili with red and green peppers. Yum.
The three stars are really for the service. I found their reception to be a bit cold (to be fair, they are usually dealing with a big rush) and there were a couple times in which they were running so behind, my online order wasn’t ready for pickup until 35 – 40 minutes later (rather than in 15)!

I came here on a break to satisfy my banana bread craving. Well, they didn’t have banana bread, but they had something better — a banana oatmeal muffin. They warmed it just ever so slightly for me (nice touch!), and it was so yummy.
I was going to head to another place for a banana treat — you know, the place whose name rhymes with Car Mucks, but the line was too long. I am so grateful I came here because there was no line, and the people were so friendly. My banana muffin was so good! It was nice and moist with a slightly crispy top (just like mom used to make). It satisfied my craving, and I like to think that because there was oatmeal, it was just a bit more healthy, too!
I think this is an excellent alternative to the aforementioned other place, so I will definitely be back!

The customer service at this Specialty’s is the worst out of all that I have been to. I asked the server if he preferred the vanilla caffe freddo or the mocha freddo. Then another server spoke up and said the mocha freddo. Before he finished the original one I asked interrupted and said «he wasn’t asking you. I prefer the vanilla.» The price was 5.26 and I had 5.25. I asked if this was ok and the server said «no sorry it is my job.» I jokingly went to the tip jar to pull out a penny and he nastily responded «don’t touch my tip jar.» I then got a penny from another customer and proceeded to enjoy the overpriced vanilla freddo. I should have gone with the mocha to be honest.

Its good, just your basic lunch place for soup and sandwiches on the go. Lots of great vegetarian options which is always a huge plus. I love there tomato soups or chill. Or I love getting the Dawns vegan salad. Usually a good spot for a pastry too. Just gets super busy around lunch, so might be good to order your food ahead of time before the lunch rush

I highly suggest ordering online, you can customize your sandwich and get it when you want it.
Aside from that. Pretty good, not amazing but for sure a go to spot if you’re in the area, as it’s pretty reasonable for what you’re paying relative to the local offering.
Staff is very friendly to boot!

Decent cookies, nothing spectacular despite the raving reviews. The cream cheese pastries are pretty good but a little too heavy on the cheese. The ones with fruit are the best. This place can get pretty chaotic around lunch time but if you order ahead it’s not a long wait. They deliver to the building their located in.
If you are like me and get to the office around 6:00 am, there are plenty of day old pastries (at the bottom of the display case) for half off to choose from.

So far, I can only comment on their cookies. I’ve tried 3 different types and by far my favorite is the chocolate peanut butter chunk. Best to get them fresh out of the oven!
The next thing I want to try are their sandwiches. The store was very busy when I was there last and it seemed that everyone was ordering one. It looked like there was a good system going, though, so hopefully the wait won’t be too long!

Hard to go wrong with their cookies — most of those stars are for cookies alone. Soups, sandwiches are ok. I haven’t tried their breakfast sandwiches yet. Breakfast pastries are generally good or better.
Not a huge fan of their coffee, though, either.
I plan on trying their at home mixes sometimes too, but man… the cookies!

I’d been wanting to hit this place up ever since I found out there was a Specialty’s Café featuring Peet’s Coffee. I tried to go one day in the winter but there was the vague threat of snow so they were closed. Lame! But I finally made it in on Monday. Like!
They were very low on the baked goods at 10am, but thankfully there was a piece of cranberry coffee cake left just for me. The two register system was a bit confusing but the girl helping me was super nice and even complimented my eye makeup. My latte took waaaaaay too long for an iced drink (there was only one person in front of me) and I noticed the two guys that came in after me also waited quite awhile for their coffees.
The latte was not the best I’ve ever had from Peet’s and the coffee cake was not the best I’ve ever had from Specialty’s, but the friendly service combined with the coupling of two things I already love means I can’t give less than 4 Stars.

I love all Specialty’s. The cookies, the salads and the sandwiches kick ass. The cashier was a cool and quirky dude.
This location is a little tucked away but that means shorter lines, right? The selection wasn’t as good as other locations but it didn’t matter much to me. I plowed through my turkey sandwich and hit the road!