Baking and cooking in the bay area from our Burlingame Avenue cafe & bakery since 1977. Our family is honored to be part of your families’ celebration as you gather for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, and the holidays. It’s a privilege to serve you delicious coffee cakes, specialty cakes, cookies, danish pastries, American food, European food, and to cater to all your bakery and cafe needs. The Nielsen family and our honored employees thank you for making us a success for four decades in Burlingame.
Since 1977, Copenhagen Bakery & Cafe has been a remarkable success story – a traditional family business that has survived and thrived despite fierce competition and sweeping changes in the Burlingame business community. Many independent merchants have been forced out by chain operations, yet our business has continued to serve the local market.
In the early 70’s, Ralf and his wife Shari followed in the footsteps of his Danish grandfather and uncle, both were bakers, by moving to Denmark to learn the bakery trade. In 1977 they returned to California, and with Ralf’s brother Ben, bought a former pastry shop and soda fountain on Burlingame Avenue. Although small, the shop included adequate bakery facilities and a 26-seat café.
In 1983 they expand into space next door. Expansion gave them the ability to increase the bakery offerings and add a breakfast menu and more variety for lunch. Soon they added dinner service Wednesday through Sunday night. The business has continued to grow thanks to word of mouth. The bakery and café frequently add new items.
Following the Copenhagen tradition of delicious homemade foods and Danish specialties, our customers can savor our offerings in the café or bring home a wide range of exquisite baked goods. We deliver catered meals, cakes, and pastries throughout the bay area. The café serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner with an extensive menu of European and American meals.
Over the years we’ve become well-known in the Bay Area for our exquisite custom-made Wedding cakes, Birthday cakes, and many other special occasion cake. From cookies to bread, petit fours to napoleons and an extensive selection of mouth-watering pastries, Copenhagen Bakery and Cafe is the place to go for a unique and delightful variety of European specialties.
They made out wedding cake and two gender reveal cakes / birthday cakes for us.
We love the white cake with mango and whipped cream and passion fruit whipped cream. I like white chocolate ganache on the cake but my hubby prefers fondant.
They also had great idea suggestions.
The gender reveal was a surprise inside my moms surprise birthday cake.
Copenhagen Bakery came in super clutch when I was assigned a very last minute job of securing a birthday cake in the midst of Christmas parties galore. Most other bakeries had already closed off their pre-orders for Christmas/Christmas Eve pickups so I was really scrambling late on the 22nd.
That's when I remembered Copenhagen Bakery. We used to come to Copenhagen more often when I was younger but then we stopped as the prices seemingly climbed while the quality seemed to decline. Plus the competition for pastries in the area is brutal. Yet, after considering several places where I could get a cake, Copenhagen's Danish Cake with its almond flavored cake layered with custard and raspberry sounded the best (or at least, one of the most unique)! The minimum time requirement was 24 hours and all ordering could be completed online - a real blessing. I made the decision to take a chance with this selection.
Sure enough, ding! 6am the next morning (23rd), I received a text to confirm my order - great! Pickup was easy on the 24th. The bakery was pretty crowded with many people trying to pick up last minute orders or retrieve their online preorders. There was plenty of staff working though and the wait was not bad at all, maybe 10-15 min in and out.
Onwards to Christmas Day - the cake held up well in my fridge. The cream was a fresh dairy whipped cream, the cake layers were moist and had a light almond flavor. The custard and the raspberry played well with the cake and the entire bite was not too sweet. It was a hit with my family and everyone asked where I managed to procure this cake.
Hats off to you Copenhagen! You've redeemed yourself tonight!
This location quickly accommodated our very large group without hesitation after we couldn't go to a restaurant down the street who was over booked. They were very kind, got food out very quickly, and the food was fairly good. Would definitely recommend this place to other large groups, though probably call ahead first!