Bird In Hand Bakery & Cafe

Review for lunch only. Did not purchase any of the baked goods here but did acknowledge their selection.
Place is pretty big with a seating area upstairs. There’s also a sink for washing your hands by the garbage which I definitely appreciated.
Had a Southwest chicken panini and a lemon chicken orzo soup. OK, pretty basic. Also the soup came with a very disappointing French roll — expected more from a bakery café.

Stopped in for lunch. Had their Chicken Panini; it was phenomenal!
Typically I grab something across the street at the farmers market when I’m in the area, but in the future I’ll definitely be comng here for lunch when I’m in the area.

Our experience may have been influenced by the fact that we stopped by on a Monday around noon-​time, so we didn’t experience anything negative in the way of service. The bakery had a lot of fun, and appealing options and the whoopee pies looked very good although I didn’t try any. What I did try was the ice cream and that was very, VERY good. Tried the cookie dough and mint chocolate chip, both were tremendously rich and flavorful. Every last person in our party of 6 enjoyed the ice cream. Just beware; the scoops are very generous (and worth being grateful for, as this is a rarity where I’m from). It’s a fairly large establishment with other edible trinkets for sale. There is outdoor seating, but the smell of horse manure was a bit overwhelming when we stopped by.
Wanted to buy the soup in a jar but forgot. Overall, worth a recommendation.

Stopped here to try the Shoofly Pie it was very good! I also bought a whoopie pie and it was ok not the best not the worst! But the strawberry pie! It was to die for! I’d go back just for that!

3.5 stars, not 3.0.
Cute place! I tried the original whoopie pie which was just OK but the molasses cookie was very good.
This is a solid bakery with a diverse amount of goodies to try. They also have a few fresh samples of different pies and cakes around the bakery (win!).

The soft-​serve ice cream here was really fresh and delicious. The whoopie pies were pretty standard. For some reason whoopie pies around me (closer to Phila) use whipped cream, and this place uses icing. I was not expecting the density of butter and and sugar that is icing, so I was ready to spit my bite out. My husband liked it. I just prefer a whipped cream taste. The chocolate cake portion was a little too sweet for me too, but again, I think this is just how they are made in the Lancaster area, and it’s just not my taste.
The staff was really friendly and they have a decent selection of bakery standards. Prices were very fair, especially on the ice cream. Everything is clean, well presented, and fresh.

Everything is so fresh and taste great! What a treat it is top walk in there.
Three hour trip for us but worth it every time.

Best whoopie pies hands down!

We stopped into Bird In Hand Bakery because the sign also said «Creamery» and I had a hankering for some fresh ice cream. Upon entering, I saw many tasty traditional Amish delights on sale, such as breads, pies, and whoopie pies (which are probably the biggest winner here, with flavors like regular, red velvet, and chocolate with peanut butter — mmmmm!!!). The ice cream, to my disappointment, was not home made (but was Hershey brand, which is near enough, but not what I was expecting). I did appreciate that they offered a mini size (kids) for a mere 75 cents! That was the perfect amount to quench my craving without doing too much harm to my waistline. I wish more places offered little sizes like that!
I also liked that the bakery had a few samples out — shoo fly pie and a cake with caramel apple icing. I wasn’t a fan of either, actually, finding them both to be too sweet and the cake in particular to be reminiscent of that of store-​bought varieties, but it was still nice that they were offered.
My husband also had an oatmeal raisin cookie that was good but nothing exceptional. It seems as though we should have tried the pies as those are getting rave reviews — perhaps next time!

I made my first stop this trip and will make this a must do every trip to Lancaster from now on. Baked goods are fresh and delicious. They are open very early in the morning so that you can shop and get coffee before the tourist bus crowds arrive. The staff was friendly and helpful. A little advice, never go here hungry you will end up buying the place out, I learned the hard way, but everything was worth the purchase!

Best kept secret in Lancaster. Worth the trip. It is off the main road. Don’t be fooled by others. This IS the best bakery for anything and reasonable. However… they should sell something GLUTEN FREE, cookies, cupcakes, breads anything.

This was our first stop… the pretzel was amazing… I will never eat another store bought pretzel! Got the sample pack of the traditional desserts… shoofly etc. all good!

I think when you are reviewing a bakery and say in your review, «freezes beautifully for up to six months, and defrosts great in a micro-​wave», you’ve pretty much spelled out your credentials to informatively review a bakery. LOL. Double LOL. If you like it straight out of the freezer, you’ll love Bird-​in-​Hand Bakery. Day old, no problem, made out of 55 gallon drums of pre-​made icing, check, using Grandma Sysco’s best recipes. Did I say that? LOL. Yep. Grandma Sysco, not Smucker!

This review is only of the baked goods since I received a gift of them and didn’t go firsthand to the bakery itself. I got a package of mini cupcakes that tasted more like mini muffins. The flavors were vanilla, strawberry shortcake, carrot and red velvet. Each tiny cupcake had a dollop of frosting that had enough sugar to kill an entire truckload of diabetics. Never one to waste fresh baked goods, I decided to scalp each mini of its frosted top. What a difference that made. Once I took off the frosting, the minis were actually quite delicious, moist and fresh, with the red velvet having the best taste. The Amish must love cream, because the whoopie pies I got were stuffed with so much cream they resembled giant, puffy, double stuffed oreos. The cake itself was light and tasty-​I had peanut butter, original and red velvet, all quite delectable after I took off almost all the cream. My advice, fill up on the baked goods after skimming off the butter cream! Your arteries and stomach and thighs will love you more for it.

I’ve been delaying this review for months because the pecan pie I bought is still sitting in my freezer, untouched.
But the items I did eat were pretty tasty. I got a beautiful-​looking chocolate cake, which was moist and not too sweet. I bought a slice of the red velvet for my friend, and she LOOVEED the cake. Or the icing. Don’t remember. Either way, it’s good. The presentation is a little shoddy though. The red velvet cake was stuck in a styrofoam platter (like the kind that raw meats are packed in) and wrapped with saran wrap and had a giant brightly-​colored sticker that said «RED VELVET.» Thanks.
Will update once I give in and eat that pecan pie… With ice cream. Mmmm.

Yum! I had my first taste of shoo fly pie here — delicious. And whoopie pies — oh my goodness. I am so glad I don’t live within driving distance of this place! On the way out of town I grabbed this peach parfait thing — layers of fresh peach slices, between chunks of cake and real whipped cream. Mmmmmm.

I absolutely love Lancaster and we end up visiting here at least once a year. One of my favorite stops while there is the Bird in Hand Bakery. Right across from the Bird in Hand Farmers Market they are a must stop when in the area! They have by far the best Shoo Fly Pie in Lancaster, and their other baked goods are fantastic too. They have great seasonal favorites, I love the peach bread in summer and the Vanilla Pie in winter is a special, unique treat. Perhaps my favorite fun food they have there is the whoopie pies! This Lancaster tradition is soft discs of moist, tasty cake stuffed with delicious buttercream. My personal favorite is the red velvet because I am a sucker for this confection and nobody does it better than the PA Dutch, but they also have other flavors like the original devils food, and pumpkin spice. The cake is always tender and the buttercream is never thick, greasy or overly sweet. They are tasty and the prices here are amazingly low when you consider the quality.
Tip: If you love Shoo Fly pie, but can’t stomach the idea of eating a whole 8″ pie before going into a diabetic coma… then try freezing half. Shoo Fly pie freezes beautifully for up to 6 months and once defrosted can be heated in the microwave for 15 seconds to regain its warm gooey goodness.