Golden Harvest Bakery & Cafe LLC
368 Jefferson Rd, Rochester, NY
Crema's Take
“This beloved Mennonite-owned cafe in Rochester has earned its stellar reputation for seriously decadent donuts that keep people coming back, paired with pillowy homemade pretzels and some of the town's best breakfast sandwiches. Beyond the exceptional pastries, Golden Harvest radiates genuine warmth through consistently kind service and a community-focused spirit that locals clearly cherish. It's the kind of independent spot where the owners' dedication to their craft shines through in every bite.”
What to expect
Google Reviews
The donuts are extremely decadent but worth trying. Pretzels are made in house and super soft and pillowy. Breakfast sandwiches are some of the best around town. Service has always been kind and helpful. I watched one of the owners handle a Karen who was complaining about the price of their coffee with oat milk with absolute professionalism.
I am very aware of occurred at Golden harvest before they had to shut down and reopen later I’m sad because I know how hard the Mennonite family works to have this business and now their presence is less and however, I still feel that Golden harvest has an amazing variety of donuts and delicious pretzels. They’re not overly salted allows you to really savor the taste. I continue to support this business as they’ve never done me wrong
Decided to try this place for the first time and I like supporting small businesses. I got a glazed donut, which was very good! I also ordered a hot chocolate which was just, okay. Overall a pretty good experience, the guy who assisted me was friendly and capable of human conversation which was refreshing!
We tried this place because everyone says it’s great and their donuts are incredible. When we walked in it was a weird experience all around. They must have recently moved things around because people in line kept saying how not organized the new layout was. I’m not sure what the old layout was, but upon walking into this place it’s extremely difficult to figure out where the line starts, where people are waiting for drinks, and where people are sitting to eat. The only employees we interacted with were less than 10 years old. Donuts were okay- we got 6 of them, which was a good deal at $10. Some of them weren’t great and you could tell they fill them with commercially purchased products like the lemon and raspberry filled donuts. Others like the cinnamon swirl, or the peanut butter filled donut were excellent! Coffee was way too sugary and not my style, which is probably my fault not theirs. One thing I’d recommend to the owners of this place is to have a consistent menu that is available everywhere. The online menu, and the TV screens above the registers are different, and then there was a specialty drink paper menu at the registers, which wasn’t available anywhere else. Seems like not a tight operation, or they were having an off day.
My friends and I travel all over the country for work and one of our go-to places to visit are donut shops. We've tried them all over, enjoyed every style and type you can think of, we like both more plain styles and more simple styles, and we even have a fairly uniform ranking of which places in the country are in our "top 5". For probably 4 years now, my number one donut spot has been the same, but Golden Harvest Bakery just dethroned it! There are several reasons, but I think what did it for me comes down to the dough. The perfect combination of fluffy but dense, moist and chewy! We got a dozen donuts and the box was heavy! The chocolate frosting was the perfect texture and sweetness, the peanut butter (complete with pb sauce) donut was intense but absolutely delicious, the lavender lemon (pictured) was so unique and flavorful (disclaimer: I could only eat half of it because it was so intense) but my favorite was just one of the plain cinnamon glaze twist donuts. I will say that I really like sweet things, and my wife might have found it a little too sweet. I didn't try anything else at the restaurant, so my review is only about the donuts... but I highly highly recommend checking it out!