American pastry argues that invention rather than tradition is the national recipe, with dated inventions to prove it. New York's Dominique Ansel Bakery invented the Cronut in its Soho oven on May 10, 2013. Prantl's Bakery invented the burnt almond torte at the bakery in 1970. Ridgewood's Rudy's Pastry Shop keeps the older immigrant line, baking German-recipe strudel and Bienenstich since 1934. Plant-based bakeries and candy counters fill the rest of the list, alongside a luncheonette or two. Signature pieces go early in the day, which rewards anyone reaching the morning case before the lunch crowd.
Locally owned coffee chain with eight cafés across Austin and Dallas, Texas, including locations at Rock Rose and Sylvan Thirty. Beyond coffee and tea, its shops serve pastries, beer, and wine.
Best for Locally owned Austin-and-Dallas coffee chain with eight cafés serving coffee, tea
Houndstooth Coffee runs eight locally owned cafés split between Austin and Dallas, Texas: five in Austin (North Lamar, Downtown, East MLK, Rock Rose, and Laurel) and three in Dallas (N. Henderson Avenue, Sylvan Thirty, and Walnut Hill). The company markets itself around what it calls 'the pattern of coffee and people,' framing its cafés as neighborhood gathering spots rather than pure grab-and-go outlets.
Menus extend beyond straight coffee and tea to include beer, wine, and pastries, positioning the cafés closer to a daytime-into-evening format than a typical espresso counter. Houndstooth also runs a catering and consulting arm for outside clients, plus an 'offsite cafes' program that places Houndstooth-branded coffee service inside other venues.
With eight standing locations across two Texas metros, Houndstooth has grown from a single café into a small regional chain, while keeping ordering largely centralized through a linked online ordering system rather than individual per-shop apps.
Heart & Whisk turns a Baytown-born baking practice into a current storefront. The operator traces cookie decorating to 2013 and documents the shop’s September 14, 2024 opening; the present offer includes small-batch pastries, decorated cookies and custom cakes.
Best for Small-batch pastries, decorated cookies and custom cakes
Zimapan on Park Street bakes pan dulce through the day — conchas, orejas, pineapple and pumpkin empanadas, pecan semita and churros with caramel. The Baytown Sun put a plate of the pastry on the December bakery page.
Beacon Hill Chocolates on Charles Street assembles boxes of artisan chocolates sourced from makers around the world, presented in its decoupage hatboxes. It also serves house confections and hot chocolate at the shop.
Hilliard's has made hand-dipped chocolates and candy in Massachusetts since the 1920s, among them butter crunch, creams and seasonal moulded pieces. The family confectioner produces its sweets in small batches and sells them from its South Shore shops.
Fowler's Chocolates, founded by Joseph A. Fowler in 1901, calls itself Buffalo's original sponge candy maker and still turns out the airy toffee-centered confection. Run from a River Rock Drive factory store, it also makes almond butter crunch, sea-salt caramels and truffles using chocolate up to 60% cacao.
Best for Sponge candy, chocolates, caramels and truffles
Marine veteran Sean O'Mahony, trained at Chicago's French Pastry School, opened Breads on Oak in 2012 as New Orleans's first all-organic bakery-café. His wife Chamain's vegan diet led the menu to go fully plant-based in 2018, including vegan king cakes and beignets.
Best for New Orleans's first all-organic bakery, fully plant-based since 2018
Frank and Mae Puch started this Chicago confectioner in 1928, and four generations later it still makes family-recipe candies including Hunky Dorey, a caramel corn studded with pecans and almonds. The factory turns out chewy caramels, hard candies, and sugar-free sweets from its longtime West Side plant.
Sycamore Grounds is a coffee shop and retail bakery in Deer Park. Its in-person selection includes coffee, fresh-baked pastries and take-home bakery goods, with a focus on fresh pastries and a focused bakery counter.
Best for Fresh pastries and a focused bakery counter
Lisa Ludwinski built Sister Pie from 40 pies baked in her parents' kitchen in 2012 into a corner bakery at 8066 Kercheval that opened in 2015. The shop makes hand-rolled seasonal pies, cookies and pastries built around Michigan produce and runs on a fair-wage, compost-forward model.
A three-generation candy maker on Highway 62 between Rogers and Eureka Springs, working from recipes that trace to a book published in 1897. The Greers hand-make their chocolates and nut confections with real chocolate, sweet cream butter, and dry-roasted nuts.
Best for Heritage handmade chocolates and nut candies
This European-style bakery at 604 Main Street makes danishes, tarts, cakes and pies along with its own bread. A fast-casual kitchen adds wood-fired pizza, waffles and sandwiches built on that bread.
A Swiss-trained chocolatier makes filled chocolates, truffles and confections at this Half Moon Bay shop, plus a counter in Palo Alto. Custom chocolate work and gift boxes fill out the offering.
Édeske is a woman-owned boutique patisserie turning out European-style pastries and chocolates in downtown Hood River. The shop favors classic French technique over the valley's more rustic pie-and-crumble baking tradition.
Pine Street Bakery turns out muffins, breakfast burritos and a signature peach kuchen from a 12th Street storefront, built around owner Megan's return home to Hood River from Portland. The menu shifts with the growing season, following whatever the valley's Fruit Loop orchards are picking.
Set in a former bank dating to 1830, this Hudson, NY bakery bakes bread in a 17-ton wood-fired oven shipped brick by brick from France's Le Perche region, for which it's named. Owners Jeff and Nina Gimmel run it as a daytime café serving French baguettes, croissants and pastries.
Best for Wood-fired French bread and pastries
Le Perche occupies a building in Hudson, New York that dates to 1830 and once operated as a bank, a history the bakery's French-inspired menu doesn't reference but the architecture still shows. It's owned by Jeff and Nina Gimmel, who also run the nearby restaurant Swoon, and is named for the Le Perche region of France.
The bakery's defining feature is its oven: a 17-ton circular wood-fired oven transported brick by brick from the Le Perche region and rebuilt on site. French baguettes, organic sourdough breads, croissants and pastries all come out of that oven, baked in a two-story carriage house that looks out over a covered garden and courtyard. The choice to import a French oven wholesale, rather than build a domestic equivalent, reflects how central that piece of equipment is to what the bakery makes.
By day the space runs as a café serving breakfast, brunch and lunch with reservations available through Resy; it also does wholesale, private events and gift cards. The Times Union has called it a place with "superb baked goods," a description that points back to the oven the whole building was arranged around.
Carrie Abbott founded Newfangled Confections in 2012 to make Frittle, a peanut-brittle-meets-fudge candy she invented for a wedding, and the company later absorbed Best Chocolate in Town, folding in the beloved downtown chocolatier's recipes in 2020. The Indianapolis kitchen still hand-dips truffles and bark alongside its original nostalgic candy lines.
Best for Small-batch candy and hand-dipped chocolate
After twenty-six years with the Houston Police Department, the Kelley family opened Country Cookin' following a 1983 retirement. The La Marque room on the Gulf Freeway still plates chicken-fried steak, a one-pound Super K burger, biscuits and gravy.
République occupies a 1928 Gothic Revival building on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles originally commissioned by Charlie Chaplin as offices; chefs Walter and Margarita Manzke reopened it as a bakery-café-restaurant in 2013, and Margarita won a 2023 James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef for her work there.
Best for Bakery brunch in a historic Charlie Chaplin building
Los Angeles chocolate and confections house founded in 2004 by Valerie Gordon and Stan Weightman Jr., who started with six flavors of hand-dipped toffee made in their apartment; opened the Echo Park shop in 2013.
Best for Truffles, cakes, and gift boxes from an artisanal chocolatier-bakery
Valerie Confections was founded in 2004 by chocolatier Valerie Gordon and her partner Stan Weightman Jr., who started the business out of their Los Angeles apartment with just six flavors of hand-dipped toffee. Gordon is self-trained rather than classically apprenticed, and built the company's reputation on modern versions of classic American confections — toffee, caramels, truffles — alongside elegant packaging aimed at the gifting market. The company grew from that toffee line into a broader confectionery and bakery business, adding petits fours, preserves, cakes (including wedding cakes), pastries, coffee, tea and sandwiches to its offering. In 2013, Gordon and Weightman opened a dedicated shop in Echo Park, which became a neighborhood fixture rather than just a production kitchen with a counter. As the business expanded, the pair outgrew their original space, moving production in 2022 into a 5,000-square-foot facility in Glendale. Gordon has been recognized within the Los Angeles food community for her confectionery work, including through the LA Food Bank's Chefs Circle program, and continues to run the company alongside Weightman more than two decades after its founding.
Billed as Miami's first chocolate factory, Exquisito crafts single-origin bars, bonbons and confections by hand in Little Havana from ethically sourced Latin American and Caribbean cacao. The online shop sells the full range, and the Calle Ocho choco-lab offers tours and classes.
Best for Billed as Miami's first chocolate factory, Exquisito crafts single-origin bars
Sift Bake Shop is a family-owned, French-focused bakery in Mystic run by pastry chef Adam Young, making artisanal breads, breakfast pastries and savory items from scratch daily. A full barista bar rounds out the flagship on Water Street, with further locations in Niantic, Watch Hill and at Mohegan Sun.
Best for French-focused scratch-made breads and pastries with a full barista bar
A New Orleans tradition since 1905, Angelo Brocato operates its original storefront at 214 N. Carrollton Avenue, serving cannoli, spumoni, and biscotti made in the Sicilian confectionery style. The shop also ships nationwide through Goldbelly for customers who can't make it to the counter in person.
Best for Gelato, Sicilian confectionery, ice cream parlor
A family-owned New Orleans candy shop since 1944, Leah's makes pecan pralines, bacon pecan brittle, frosted pecans and gourmet chocolates fresh daily from 1930s recipes. Its St. Louis Street shop and direct online store sell creole candies and gift boxes.
Best for Confectioner, pralines, candy, chocolates
Dominique Ansel trained eight years at Fauchon before becoming pastry chef at Daniel Boulud's Daniel in New York in 2006. On May 10, 2013, at his own Soho bakery he introduced the Cronut, a laminated dough proofed then fried in grapeseed oil; TIME named it one of that year's 25 best inventions.
Best for The original Cronut, invented here in Soho on May 10, 2013.
Dominique Ansel was born in 1978 in Beauvais, north of Paris, and started working in a restaurant kitchen at 16 to help support his family. He spent eight years at the Paris pâtisserie Fauchon before moving to New York in 2006 to become pastry chef at Daniel, Daniel Boulud's flagship restaurant.
On May 10, 2013 — Mother's Day — Ansel introduced the Cronut at his own bakery in SoHo: a croissant-doughnut hybrid built from a proprietary laminated dough that's proofed, then fried in grapeseed oil. It took him two months of development to land on the recipe, and the pastry went viral almost immediately, drawing lines around the block. TIME named it one of the year's 25 best inventions of 2013.
Ansel has since built a small network of NYC concepts around the original SoHo bakery, including the Dominique Ansel Workshop croissant café in Flatiron and Papa d'Amour, a newer shop built around Asian bread culture; he has also been named World's Best Pastry Chef by the World's 50 Best Restaurants organization.
Coastal Bake Shop is an artisan bakery in Pasadena. Its in-person selection includes viennoiserie, naturally leavened breads and seasonal baked goods, with a focus on sourdough, laminated pastry and a focused bakery counter.
Best for Sourdough, laminated pastry and a focused bakery counter
Shane Confectionery has operated since 1863, hand-making buttercreams, bonbons, and clear-toy candy from ethically sourced cacao on Market Street in Old City Philadelphia. The shop sells its chocolates and confections in-store and online, alongside candy-making workshops.
Best for Confectionery, Bean-to-Bar Chocolate, Bonbons, Historic Candy
Termini Brothers Bakery has hand-made Italian cannoli, cookies and pastries in Philadelphia since 1921, when brothers Giuseppe and Gaetano Termini opened its South 8th Street shop. Three generations of the family have since passed down the bakery's original cannoli-shell tools and techniques across six Philadelphia-area locations.
Best for Hand-shaped cannoli made with century-old family tools
Termini Brothers Bakery opened in 1921 on Philadelphia's South 8th Street, founded by brothers Giuseppe and Gaetano Termini, who brought Italian pastry-making traditions into a South Philadelphia neighborhood then home to a large Italian immigrant community.
The bakery's craft has been handed down within the family for three generations, including the original tools and techniques used for its hand-shaped cannoli shells — still described by the bakery as its most celebrated item. Termini also bakes a torrone, an Italian nougat candy, to a family recipe it traces back to the early 1800s, alongside Italian cookies such as pignoli, amaretti and cucidati, coffee ring cakes, biscotti and almond horns.
Today Termini Brothers operates six Philadelphia-area locations, including its original South 8th Street flagship, a stall at Reading Terminal Market, and outposts at the Comcast Center and Live! Casino & Hotel Philadelphia. The bakery ships nationwide, continuing to sell cannoli, cookies and pastries made using its founding-era methods.
The Franklin Fountain is a recreated 1915-style ice cream parlor and soda fountain in Philadelphia's Old City, founded in 2004 by the Berley Brothers and making its ice cream, syrups, and baked goods on-site with local ingredients. The shop sells scoops, sodas, and packaged treats over the counter alongside gift cards and ice cream cakes.
Best for Confectionery, Ice Cream, Soda Fountain, Handmade Sweets
Tammie Coe Cakes bakes sugar cookies, cupcakes and made-to-order cakes from a walk-up counter inside Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport's Terminal 4, alongside preorder pickup at its Scottsdale kitchen. All cake orders require 72 hours' advance notice, and its pastries are also stocked at AJ's Fine Foods stores.
Best for Made-to-order cakes with airport terminal pickup
Prantl's Bakery is home to the burnt almond torte, created by baker Henry Prantl in 1970 and later called "The Greatest Cake America Has Ever Made" by HuffPost. The Pittsburgh bakery now runs five area locations selling tortes, pastries and custom cakes, with nationwide shipping through its online store.
Best for Burnt almond torte, invented at this bakery in 1970
Prantl's Bakery traces to Pittsburgh's Shadyside neighborhood, where accounts of its exact founding vary — some sources credit Henry and Joyce Prantl opening the shop in 1967, others Jane and Larry Prantl in 1968 — but its Walnut Street building has housed a working bakery in continuous operation for more than a century.
The bakery's signature burnt almond torte dates to 1970, when baker Henry Prantl developed it after the Almond Board of California encouraged bakers at a trade conference to find new uses for almonds during a market surplus. The torte caught on locally and then nationally; HuffPost named it "The Greatest Cake America Has Ever Made" in 2014, and it remains the bakery's best-known item decades later.
Prantl's now operates five Pittsburgh-area locations — Shadyside, Northside, Bellevue, Greensburg and inside the Omni William Penn hotel — selling more than 100 bakery items alongside the torte, including custom and wedding cakes. The bakery ships its baked goods nationwide and also delivers locally through DoorDash and Uber Eats.
European-style luncheonette in downtown Portland (opened 2013) from chef Kristen D. Murray - French-Norwegian pastries, fika-style coffee service, and a short savory lunch menu.
Best for Seasonal savoury and sweet dishes at a French-inspired luncheonette and pastry shop.
Maurice, at 921 SW Oak Street in downtown Portland, opened in 2013 as a French-Scandinavian luncheonette from chef Kristen D. Murray, who drew on her Norwegian heritage and love of France for the concept (and named the restaurant after her pet rabbit). The format bridges a pastry shop and cafe: currant-and-rosemary scones and anisette-chocolate brioche sit alongside a Swedish-style 'fika' coffee break menu, with lunch service after 11 a.m. offering dishes such as pigeon bisteeya, radishes with butter, Norwegian meatballs, and grapefruit-cured gravlax.
Recchiuti Confections crafts artisan chocolates in San Francisco, infusing them with herbs like lavender and lemon verbena sourced from local California farmers' markets. The confections and gift boxes come out of its Ferry Building and Dogpatch operations.
Fran Bigelow founded Fran's Chocolates in Seattle in 1982, starting with pastries in Madison Valley before truffles took over the business. The company makes truffles and salted caramels by hand, along with Gold Bars, in Georgetown, where the shop at 5900 Airport Way S shares a former brewery building with production. Bigelow's daughter Andrina and son Dylan now run it with her.
Best for Salted caramels, truffles and gift chocolates
Fran Bigelow opened Fran's Patisserie and Chocolate Specialties in Seattle's Madison Valley in 1982. She came to it after a business degree from the University of Washington and a trip to Paris, then training at the California Culinary Academy. Cakes and pastries came first. The truffles she handed to customers waiting in holiday lines soon became the centre of the business. Her Gold Bars reached the original ten Starbucks stores in 1986 and Williams Sonoma in 1989, and Julia Child visited the shop in 1988. The Gray Salt Caramel introduced in 1998 was followed by the Smoked Salt Caramel, each winning an Outstanding Confection award. Production moved to Pike Street on Capitol Hill in 1992. In 2014 it moved again, to a LEED Platinum building in the old Rainier Brewery in Georgetown. There the retail shop at 5900 Airport Way S shares the building with production and a viewing area. Many products carry Organic and Fairtrade certifications. Bigelow wrote the cookbook Pure Chocolate and was inducted into the Specialty Food Association Hall of Fame in 2018. She has since received the association's Lifetime Achievement Award. Her daughter Andrina is CEO and her son Dylan is Director of Chocolate.
618 Coffeehouse has served coffee from 618 West Main Street in Lewistown for more than 25 years, run by Michelle, who left healthcare to take it over. It bakes sourdough bread and pastries fresh each morning, with a drive-thru on US-191.
Best for It bakes sourdough bread and pastries fresh each morning
618 Coffeehouse has poured coffee from 618 West Main Street in Lewistown for more than 25 years, a run that now spans a full change of ownership: Michelle, the current owner, left a healthcare career to take over the shop, keeping it a fixture on the same Main Street block it's occupied for decades. Beyond espresso drinks, the kitchen bakes its own sourdough bread and pastries fresh every morning; that bread program is central to the identity of the place, not a side offering tacked onto a coffee menu.
The business has also grown a second footprint: a drive-thru location on US-191, separate from the Main Street storefront, giving Lewistown a faster option alongside the original sit-down shop. Combined, the two locations cover both the town's historic Main Street strip and its highway traffic, with the same house-baked sourdough program running through both.
For a small-town Montana coffeehouse, a quarter-century on one block, a healthcare-career owner, and a genuine bread program are the specifics that separate it from a standard drive-thru chain.
Open in Leola, Pennsylvania since 1954 and marking more than 70 years in business, this bakery calls itself the 'Home of the Long John.' It turns out scratch pies, cakes and wholesome breads alongside its namesake pastry from the same Main Street storefront.
This Main Street market pairs wine, cigars, and gourmet provisions with regional bottles such as Cape Charles Assateague wine and Oliver Camelot mead, plus pastries and its own JavaHorse coffee. The owners run tastings, classes, and catering from the same address.
Best for Wine, cigars, gourmet provisions and JavaHorse coffee
An artisan chocolatier making small-batch bean-to-bar and couverture chocolate, truffles, bonbons, and caramels on site at 920 Main Avenue. The company takes its name from the Rio de las Animas Perdidas and runs a downtown cafe alongside its confections.
Best for Small-batch bean-to-bar chocolate, truffles, bonbons
Chef Oscar Ortega, recognized as the first Mexican-born Chocolate Master, grew Atelier Ortega out of his original Cioccolato pastry shop in 2009 and opened the CocoLove retail boutique in 2012 to sell the line. The Jackson workshop makes competition-grade bonbons, entremets, and Viennoiserie alongside gelato and artisan bread.
On Bay Street, the Baked Dessert Cafe and Gallery pairs a from-scratch bakery of cakes, pastries and sweets with rotating displays of local art. It has become a morning gathering spot in downtown Berlin.
Bakery Lorraine, founded in San Antonio, is known for its handmade French macarons alongside pastries, custom cakes and catering. It has grown from its original Pearl-district shop to three locations across San Antonio, Boerne and Austin.
Best for Handmade French macarons across three Texas locations
An old-fashioned chocolate shop on White Mountain Highway in North Conway, the Bavarian Chocolate Haus makes its truffles, fudge and confections by hand in-house. Its sweets and maple products can be bought in the shop or ordered through the online store.
Best for Chocolate, truffles, fudge, maple products
Beaverdale Confections makes truffles, toffee, fudge, caramels, and marshmallows by hand on Beaver Avenue in Des Moines, using cane sugar, real butter, and Belgian chocolate with no preservatives. Everything is cooked in-house from scratch.
Best for Handmade truffles, toffee, and marshmallows
Beetlebung Farm is a regenerative operation at 410 Middle Road whose farmstand sells just-picked produce alongside bread and pastries from its own mill and bakery. Summer brings farm dinners, tastings, and tours in the heart of Chilmark.
Best for Farmstand produce and stone-milled baked goods
The Wynwood factory runs guided tastings with more than 20 chocolates and confections, from single-origin dark bars to filled pieces. Visitors can book the experience separately from buying boxes at the production shop.
Best for Miami chocolate maker producing bonbons, bars
At 66 Main Street, Ben & Bill's makes hand-made chocolates and its well-known lobster ice cream. The confectioner and ice-cream maker is a Bar Harbor Main Street institution.
Best for Handmade chocolates and lobster ice cream
Bissinger's has crafted chocolate since tracing its roots to 1668 France, now selling truffles, caramels, and seasonal collections from boutiques in malls across the country including two St. Louis locations. A robust online shop ships nationwide, alongside express ordering and in-store pickup options.
A French café, bakery and wine shop opened by chef Robert Barral, serving Provençal cooking and selling house breads, pastries and regional wines in central Brandon. Its ground-floor bakery counter and wine shop supply baked goods and picnic provisions to take away.
Family-owned since 1937, Candy Kitchen makes salt water taffy, creamy fudge and hand-dipped chocolates the old-fashioned way, with gummies, pretzels and beach novelties rounding out the shelves. Its treats sell across shops in Maryland and Delaware and ship nationwide from the online store.
Best for Confectionery, saltwater taffy, fudge, chocolate, candy
This family-run chocolatier at 110 East 2nd Street makes toffees, caramels, creams and truffles fresh in its downtown kitchen. Seasonal flavors rotate through the year alongside the core confection line.
Chubby Chipmunk hand-dips chocolates and truffles at its shop on Cliff Street in Deadwood, working with fine chocolate including rare Peruvian Fortunato No. 4. The confectionery makes custom truffle collections alongside its everyday cases.
A vintage-style confectioner that makes fudge and chocolates on the premises, in flavours such as pistachio, chocolate peanut butter and coconut. The small factory and shop sits on Main Street among Cold Spring's other independent storefronts.
Set in a storybook cottage on Ocean Avenue, Cottage of Sweets carries imported British confectionery, saltwater taffy and handmade fudge alongside jars of nostalgic American candy. The shop has sweetened Carmel visits for decades with pick-and-mix and old-fashioned treats.
Cousin's Candy Shop has sold old-fashioned candy, homemade fudge, salt water taffy, and hand-dipped chocolates from its historic storefront in Virginia City, Montana since 1969. The seasonal shop, open May through September, also ships its confections through an online store.
Best for Old-fashioned candy, homemade fudge, salt water taffy, and hand-dipped chocolates
Denver Biscuit Company is a specialty biscuit sandwich shop serving massive, fluffy biscuit creations with creative fillings. The range centers on massive fluffy biscuit sandwiches with creative fillings, with production associated with Denver.
Best for Massive fluffy biscuit sandwiches with creative fillings
A bean-to-bar maker on the Humboldt Bay waterfront at 333 First Street, producing single-origin dark and milk bars along with drinking chocolate and confections. The factory includes a tasting room and cafe pouring single-origin chocolate drinks and baking treats on site.
Best for Single-origin bars and drinking chocolate from the Humboldt Bay waterfront factory's tasting
A fourth-generation Ocean City institution since 1910, Dolle's Candyland still makes its salt water taffy, buttery caramel popcorn, fudge and caramels on the corner of Wicomico Street and the Boardwalk. Four shops across Ocean City and Berlin sell the sweets, which also ship year-round from the direct online store.
Best for Confectionery, saltwater taffy, caramel popcorn, fudge, candy
Eclipse Chocolate Bar & Bistro handcrafts close to 100 confections in San Diego's South Park, from truffles to bars. Pastries and full-service dining share the space.
Pastry chef Karen Krasne built Extraordinary Desserts into a San Diego destination for cakes and petit desserts. Whole and wedding cakes anchor the Bankers Hill counter.
Open on the Ocean City Boardwalk since 1937, Fisher's Popcorn still cooks its secret caramel recipe in copper kettles under the eye of trained popcorn chefs, now run by the third generation of Fishers. Tubs, tins and bags sell at its Boardwalk and West Ocean City shops and ship from the online store.
Best for Popcorn, caramel corn, confectionery, Boardwalk, candy
A Los Gatos patisserie-chocolaterie working from French recipes for its mousse cakes, tarts and pastries. Its café pours Verve Coffee and Harney & Sons tea alongside the pastry case.
Best for French mousse cakes, tarts and pastries made with Verve Coffee and Harney
Locally owned since 1992, Flying M house-roasts its coffee and bakes scratch pastries across four Idaho locations, from Boise's coffeehouse to McCall's lakeside spot on Payette Lake. It also hosts regular Craft Markets and sells off-beat gifts.
Best for It also hosts regular Craft Markets and sells off-beat gifts
Flying M Coffee has operated in Idaho since 1992, long enough to have expanded from a single coffeehouse into four distinctly named locations: the original Coffeehouse in downtown Boise on West Idaho Street, a Coffeeshop in Caldwell, a Coffeegarage in Nampa, and Flying M Lakeside on Payette Lake in McCall. Each site pairs house-roasted coffee with scratch-made pastries baked on premises, a combination the company treats as inseparable rather than treating the bakery as a secondary attraction to the coffee program. The McCall location trades specifically on its setting, overlooking Payette Lake rather than sitting on a standard commercial street, which distinguishes it from the three more urban Boise-area shops. Beyond the core coffeehouse format, the company runs regular Craft Markets at its locations and stocks off-beat gift items alongside the coffee and pastry menu, extending the shops toward a broader local-goods retail role. Beans ship through the company's online store for customers outside driving distance of the four physical sites.
Gourmet Works of Pleasanton is a specialty food and gift shop selling chocolates and confections from its storefront on Main Street in Downtown Pleasanton. The shop offers curated gift boxes both in-store and through its online shop.
A European-inspired bakery open since 1998, making sourdough and yeast breads, Viennoiserie, and seasonal pastries at 2706 Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard. The kitchen works from simple ingredients in the Central European baking tradition.
French-born brothers the Rizzos opened La Boulangerie on Magazine Street in 2000; James Beard Award-winning chef Donald Link's Link Restaurant Group purchased it in late 2015. It remains the group's neighborhood bakery for croissants, baguettes, and pastries baked fresh daily.
Best for Magazine Street boulangerie owned by James Beard winner Donald Link's restaurant group
A family confectioner since 1908, Lagomarcino's makes hand-dipped chocolates and pours old-fashioned sodas at its East Davenport shop at 2132 East 11th Street. The counter is known for house-made hot fudge and boxed chocolates alongside a working soda fountain.
A downtown bakery specializing in hearth-baked sourdough breads and pastries, grown from a farmers-market operation into a brick-and-mortar shop in 2011. Located at 111 W Parrish Street, it sources seasonal ingredients from NC Triangle growers and makers.
Chef Marie Eiffel has run this French specialty market on Shelter Island's waterfront for over two decades, selling fresh-baked pastries, organic produce, and frozen prepared meals to take home alongside its dockside café. Customers can shop in person or place pickup orders for frozen foods online.
Best for Specialty market, French bakery, Prepared foods
This coastal candy kitchen in Mendocino County hand-makes truffles, chocolates, fudge and confections in small batches. Its shops in Mendocino and Fort Bragg and its online store sell gift boxes, assortments and seasonal collections shipped with care.
Mountain Java sources pastries, juice and handmade goods from more than a dozen McCall makers, including Stacey Cakes and Deez Squeeze, at its Pine Street spot beside Payette Lake. Order online via Toast for roughly 20-minute pickup.
Best for Mountain Java sources pastries
Mountain Java sits on Pine Street in McCall, Idaho, with, by its own description, several rooms and a patio that puts Payette Lake at the door. Rather than positioning itself purely as a roastery, the café functions as a hub for more than a dozen local makers: pastry comes from Stacey Cakes, juice from Deez Squeeze, and the shop also carries handmade jewelry, woodworking, photography prints, stickers and greeting cards from area artisans, giving the space as much retail character as café character. The coffee itself is sourced rather than roasted in-house, with Cafe Darte named as a supplier on the site, though the page does not specify whether that relationship covers the full bean program. Ordering now runs partly through Toast, the point-of-sale platform, with online orders ready for pickup in roughly twenty minutes, a practical detail for a lake-town café that likely sees seasonal volume swings. Open daily from seven in the morning to six at night, the café's identity leans more on its role as a local-goods showcase beside Payette Lake than on any single house roast or founding story, neither of which the site discloses.
Mylo Coffee Co. grew out of a Hillcrest Farmers Market stall run by husband-and-wife team Stephanos and Monica Mylonas, who opened a brick-and-mortar shop on Kavanaugh Boulevard in 2014 and later added in-house roasting. The Hillcrest storefront pairs espresso drinks with scratch-made pastries; ownership changed in 2019, but it remains a single neighborhood coffee shop and bakery rather than a multi-city chain.
Best for Mylo Coffee Co
Mylo Coffee Co. began as a stall at the Hillcrest Farmers Market around 2012, where husband-and-wife team Stephanos and Monica Mylonas sold hand-crafted pastries and pour-over coffee. Stephanos brought a focus on local ingredients that started on his home island of Cyprus and deepened in the United Kingdom, where the couple met; working with his brother Markos, he built the market stall's baked goods and coffee into enough of a following to open a brick-and-mortar shop on Kavanaugh Boulevard in Little Rock's Hillcrest neighborhood in 2014. The shop later added its own coffee roasting to the pastry-and-espresso program. Ownership changed hands in 2019, and Mylo has since operated under new ownership while keeping its original Hillcrest storefront and scratch-pastry, espresso-forward format rather than becoming a multi-city chain. Today it functions as a single neighborhood bakery-cafe: espresso drinks paired with pastries made in-house, in the same Hillcrest neighborhood where the Mylonas family first sold coffee out of a market stall. It suits regulars who want a genuine neighborhood coffee-and-bakery stop with a documented local-market origin, rather than a franchise outlet.
East Chapel Hill Street (Five Points), downtown, Durham, NC
An organic bakery serving Durham since 1981, making artisan breads, pastries, and cafe fare from its Five Points location at 136 East Chapel Hill Street. Founded by the Ferrell family, it has operated continuously and passed to owner Ari Berenbaum in 2013.
Founded in 2001 by former Ritz-Carlton pastry chef Norman Love, this Southwest Florida chocolatier crafts artful bonbons, bars, macarons and gift boxes recognized repeatedly among America's best. Its chocolate salons and direct online store sell assortments, build-your-own boxes and gifts.
Old Kentucky Chocolates hand-produces regional confections such as Old Kentucky Bourbon Chocolates, Derby Mints and Chocolate Thoroughbreds from its Lexington kitchens. The shop also keeps a recipe for Old Fashion Pulled Creams, an old-fashioned hand-pulled candy tied to the city's bourbon and horse-racing culture.
Best for Bourbon-filled chocolates and Chocolate Thoroughbreds as Kentucky gifts
Mackinac Island's original fudge maker since 1887, Original Murdick's hand-cooks fudge, brittle and toffee on marble slabs using Michigan sugar, cream and cherries. Boxes and gift selections ship nationwide from its online shop.
A German Village patisserie known for French macarons, laminated pastries, and plated desserts made on the premises each morning. Beyond the pastry case it serves breakfast, lunch, and house coffee.
Best for German Village patisserie known for French macarons, laminated pastries
Pistacia Vera began in 2004 as Pistachio, a patisserie opened in Columbus' Short North Arts District by siblings Spencer Budros and Anne Fletcher, who paired his training as a pastry chef in Scottsdale, Arizona with her background in financial planning and investment management. After three years in Short North, they moved the business to German Village in 2007 and renamed it Pistacia Vera. The German Village building carries its own local history: it originally housed Reiner's Bakery, opened in 1930 by German immigrant Gottlieb "George" Reiner, and later became Tom Thurn Foods, a neighborhood fixture from 1974 to 2004. The siblings restored the building and pastry kitchen, work that earned an American Institute of Architects merit award in 2008. That restoration underpins the current shop's daily routine: French macarons, laminated pastries and plated desserts made on the premises each morning, served alongside breakfast, lunch and house coffee from 7am to 5pm. The throughline from Reiner's 1930 bakery to today's patisserie means Pistacia Vera occupies a building that has served baked goods to the same block of German Village for close to a century, under three different names and owners.
Sisters Michelle Novosel and Caitlin Lyon opened Pizzelle's Confections in 2013, hand-making chocolates and confections they call edible art, and the shop now operates from Campus 805 after starting at Historic Lowe Mill. The business has won Small Business Administration awards in 2018 and 2023 and USA Today recognition for its chocolate.
Red Moose Cookie Company has baked oversized cookies, brownies and specialty confections on Main Street since 2003, now run by the Nichol family. The bakery assembles gift baskets and rotates limited-edition seasonal flavours.
Best for Oversized cookies, brownies and gift baskets
Rudy's opened in Ridgewood, Queens in 1934 as the neighborhood's German bakery. Ralph DiFonzo bought the shop in 1980 with his niece Antonetta Binanti, a Naples-born immigrant, who kept traditional strudel, Bienenstich, and Linzer tart recipes alive.
Best for German-recipe strudel and Bienenstich cake, baked in Ridgewood since 1934.
Founded by Harry Ryba, the self-styled 'Fudge King' of Mackinac Island, Ryba's still hand-crafts creamy fudge as a public spectacle in its shops. Its signature pink boxes are sold on the island and shipped through the online store.
Samuel's Sweet Shop is a candy and coffee shop on East Market Street in Rhinebeck. Founded by Ira Gutner in 1994, it continues to sell chocolates and other confections alongside baked goods and coffee. The shop stayed open after a change of ownership following its founder's death, retaining its place as a small stop in the village centre.
Best for Candy, chocolate and coffee in Rhinebeck
Since 1994, Samuel's Sweet Shop has sweetened Rhinebeck, a small upstate New York village that punches well above its weight in celebrity residents. The Sweet Team behind the counter has included Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Hilarie Burton and Paul Rudd, and the shop's national television run — the Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning — suggests the candy holds up to the attention.
The signature pieces earn it. "Over the Tops" pack peanut butter cups between double-stuffed Oreos and drop the whole thing in milk chocolate; Almond Buttercrunch dips its toffee in milk chocolate and rolls it in almonds; and a Signature Bark works dark chocolate with cherries, almonds and sea salt into something closer to a confection than a candy-bar knockoff. A peanut butter cup blondie recently drew a feature in People Magazine, and the shop has picked up Best Candy Store honors from the Hudson Valley and Best Dessert at the local Taste of Rhinebeck.
Coffee — from Partners, a New York roaster — rounds out the counter alongside baked goods, but the chocolate is what built the shop's thirty-year run at 42 East Market Street, one handmade batch at a time in a village where everyone seems to know everyone, famous or not.
Standard Baking Co. has baked bread and pastries from its Commercial Street storefront in Portland, Maine since 1995, founded by Alison and Matt Pray using locally sourced grains and techniques inspired by village bakers. Its baguettes, croissants and Maine-grain loaves are sold in the shop and through online ordering.
Best for Down East Magazine's 'Best Bakery' Reader's Choice pick
Standard Baking Co. opened in 1995 on Portland, Maine's Commercial Street, founded by Alison and Matt Pray with a stated aim of baking the way village bakers once did — daily breads and sweets made for neighbors, not for scale.
The bakery bakes with locally and sustainably sourced grains, turning out artisanal breads including a baguette, a Maine Miche, a Maine 5 Grain loaf and a sesame spelt loaf, alongside breakfast pastries such as croissants, pain au chocolat and morning buns, plus scones, financiers, brownies and cookies. Its own description of the approach: "We try to make the same thing every day, but better than the day before."
The bakery has been featured by Down East Magazine, the Boston Globe, Insider.com, the James Beard Foundation and Condé Nast Traveler, and Down East named it "Best Bakery" in its Reader's Choice awards. Standard Baking still operates from its original Commercial Street address, open daily with a dedicated window for special-order pickup.
This Church Hill bakery bakes naturally leavened breads and pastries in a wood-fired oven. Stone-milled local flours form the base of everything it makes.
Suju's Coffee & Tea has run in Fremont and Union City since a 1990s original shop, now three cafes roasting Arabica in small batches on a San Franciscan roaster. The menu pairs coffee, tea and frappes with deli sandwiches, bagels and pastries.
Best for Menu pairs coffee, tea and frappes with deli sandwiches, bagels and pastries
Suju's Coffee & Tea traces back to a shop first opened in the 1990s by its namesake owner, Suju, before the current family took over and expanded it into a small local chain around Fremont and Union City. Three cafes now operate under the name — the original on Thornton Avenue, a second on Stevenson Boulevard, and a third on Decoto Road in Union City — all supplied by beans the company roasts itself in small batches on a San Franciscan roasting machine at its Fremont facility, sourcing Arabica from coffee-growing regions worldwide.
The menu runs wider than a straight coffee bar: espresso drinks and frappes sit alongside a tea list, fruit smoothies, and a food counter of deli and breakfast sandwiches, bagels and pastries, making the cafes as much a daytime stop for a meal as for a drink. It reads as a neighborhood roaster-cafe model rather than a specialty-coffee destination — the emphasis is on controlling bean quality through in-house roasting across multiple everyday locations, not on single-origin rarities or competition pedigree. For regulars in Fremont and Union City, that means a consistent cup and a full breakfast-and-lunch menu at three easy-to-reach spots.
Sweet Cooie’s serves frozen custard, ice cream and old-fashioned sweets from a Congress Park counter. Packaged confectionery and take-away scoops make it genuine food retail, with flavours changing seasonally.
Best for Handcrafted frozen custard and old-fashioned sweets in Denver
Taylor's Candy Co. makes and sells candy from its shop at 1519 Cox Street in Jackson, a business the Jackson Advocate profiled as a local success story built on the owner's persistence. The company sells its confections directly from the storefront and through online orders.
Best for House-made candy from the Cox Street shop in Jackson, Mississippi
The Beehive Cafe serves breakfast and lunch built on locally sourced ingredients at 10 Franklin Street in Bristol, Rhode Island's historic waterfront district. Its housemade bread and pastries pair with New Harvest Coffee Roaster coffee, and a companion venture, The Beehive Pantry, extends the kitchen into packaged goods.
Best for Locally sourced breakfast, New Harvest coffee and harbor views
Founded in July 2007 by Jen Cavallaro on Franklin Street overlooking Bristol Harbor, The Beehive Cafe opened as a bakery -- bread, pastries, and coffee -- with breakfast and then a full lunch menu added as the operation grew, and weekend dinners joining by 2010. New Harvest Coffee Roasters supplies the espresso and drip program, and the kitchen sources ingredients locally where it can, a habit built into daily operations for a small Rhode Island harbor town rather than a marketing point. The Beehive Pantry, a companion venture selling packaged bread and pastries, grew directly out of that same baking operation rather than as a separate later concept. Ownership has since passed from the Cavallaro family to John, Sherry, and Emily Scott -- Emily had worked at the cafe for years beforehand and took on day-to-day operations with an explicit intent to keep the menu and atmosphere unchanged rather than reposition the business. Nearly two decades on, The Beehive Cafe still runs on the premise it opened with: a working waterfront bakery that built its menu outward meal by meal, season by season, instead of launching fully formed.
A chocolate and confections shop making handmade milk and dark chocolates, truffles and fudge on-site since 1982. The store at 55 New Orleans Road sells its molds, cordials and taffy alongside boxed gift assortments.
In Washington's Dupont Circle neighborhood, The Chocolate House stocks more than 300 chocolate bars and confections from artisan makers around the world in its tasting room and boutique. Customers can shop in person at 1904 18th St NW or order online for pickup or delivery.
Best for 300+ artisan chocolate bars and confections from around the world
On Market Street, The Hot Chocolatier hand-makes truffles, bonbons and its signature chocolate squirrels alongside pastries and specialty drinks. The downtown shop has built a following for European-style confections crafted in small batches.
Ohio native Sarah O'Brien started Little Tart at Atlanta farmers markets in 2010, opening her first shop in Grant Park in 2011. It now runs three Atlanta locations -- Grant Park, Krog Street Market and Summerhill -- sourcing ingredients from local farmers and foragers.
Best for Farmers-market-grown French pastry across three Atlanta shops
The Little Tart Bakeshop began as a farmers-market stall in 2010, when Ohio native Sarah O'Brien -- drawn south, by her own account, by the region's long growing season, good produce and friends already living in Atlanta -- started selling pastries directly to market shoppers. The stall did well enough that O'Brien opened her first permanent shop in 2011, at the Jane building in Grant Park.
The bakery has since grown to three brick-and-mortar locations across Atlanta -- Grant Park, Krog Street Market, and Summerhill, the newest, opened in 2019 -- while keeping its market-stall roots through continued farmers-market appearances. Its French-inspired seasonal tarts, croissants and pastries lean on relationships with local suppliers: farmers, jam makers, beekeepers, cheese makers and butchers all named as ingredient sources.
A decade and a half after its market-stall start, Little Tart still frames itself around that same local-sourcing, market-born identity, run by what the bakery describes as a team of bakers, baristas and counter staff focused on continuous improvement in the craft.
A downtown Memphis tradition on South Main Street since 1949, The Peanut Shoppe roasts nuts fresh throughout the day and fills the block with their aroma. Alongside cashews, pistachios and peanuts it sells candy, gift baskets and holiday assortments, in store and online.
The Sweet Palace is a six-time TripAdvisor "#1 Candy Shop in the US," handcrafting fudge, chocolates, and saltwater taffy in small batches in Philipsburg, Montana since 1998. The historic candy emporium sells its confections both in-store and through its online shop, which ships nationwide.
Best for Confectionery, Fudge, Saltwater Taffy, Chocolates
Whetstone Chocolates has been hand-crafting chocolate seashells, truffles, and fudge in St. Augustine for decades, with three storefronts around the city including its factory shop and tasting-tour location on King Street. Shoppers can buy in person or order online, with treats like the America's Collection sea shells shipped Monday through Thursday.
An Ohio family confectioner and coffee roaster dating to 1962, making chocolates and roasting coffee sold through its own cafes. The German Village shop pairs house chocolates with espresso and pour-over coffee.
Best for Hand-rolled buckeyes on a generations-old recipe, paired with house-roasted coffee since 1961
Winans has been making chocolate by hand in Ohio since 1961 — the company's own site puts it as "handmade since 1961" — and its signature product is the buckeye: a peanut-butter center hand-rolled and dipped in chocolate using a recipe passed down through generations, famous enough in Ohio to be treated as a category of its own rather than just another candy. Coffee roasting joined the chocolate business over time, and today the two are sold side by side — single-origin and flavored beans alongside buckeyes and a proprietary Wurtles line — through cafes that pour both espresso and pour-over next to the chocolate case. The German Village shop in Columbus is one of at least a dozen Winans locations across Ohio, spanning towns from Celina and Marysville to Piqua, Sidney, and Wapakoneta, with some towns carrying more than one location. Seasonal drinks like a Strawnilla cold brew sit alongside the standing chocolate and coffee menu. It's a combination that's unusual to find under one roof — a confectioner and a coffee roaster growing up together rather than one added on as an afterthought — and Winans has kept both going for more than six decades.
Yippy I-O Candy Co. has sold penny candy and house-made fudge in the Jackson Hole valley since 1993, popping caramel corn in-house and stocking more than 1,000 candy varieties. The shop has been recognized as Wyoming's best candy store for its old-fashioned confectionery.
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