Rainbow Bakery

My boyfriend’s family has been going to Rainbow bakery for years. It isn’t St. Patrick’s Day without their rye bread is amazing. They used to have the best russian tea cakes, not so much anymore. I have no idea what happened but they tasted waxy and weird this time. My boyfriend’s family got Zeppole’s from there too and they had the same gross waxy taste. Come for the rye bread but go elsewhere for the pastries.

Excellent experience! Tried the bagels, chive cream cheese, hermits and raisin challah bread and all of it was fantastic. My new favorite bakery in Cranston!

Honestly, I wanted to come in here and be blown away. I wanted to have the pleasure of going to the last Jewish bakery in this fair state, and from then on go there every weekend. I wanted it to fill the bagel shaped hole in my heart.
Instead the whole place was tired and old and it seemed like nobody cared to improve on anything. I mean sure the bagel was pretty good, but you can get a pretty good bagel anywhere. Granted, I didn’t have the cookies or any other baked goods, but all of them looked as though they were mass produced for the super market.
It could be that the owners are getting older, and there’s no younger generation to take up the mantle, but this place could be a real gem. I peeked back into the workshop and it’s got such a beautiful old world feel, you can see the generations of baking that have accumulated there. The café area, however, looks as though they were forced to update it years ago and nobody cared to make it look nice or reflect that any consideration went into it at all.
I wanted this to be my bagel eden, but sadly I won’t be back.

This is a fantastic bakery. it is not quite as extensive as some of the Italian bakeries but what they lack in quantity they make up for in quality. The service was outstanding and folks were really friendly.
We ordered several items from bread to cookies. One of the items we ordered is a Russian Tea Cake, amazing. This is worth a trip just by itself.

This is a wonderful Jewish bakery on Reservoir Avenue that bakes daily the freshest of crusty breads, the most fabulous cakes and cookies as well as, be still my heart, Russian Tea Cake!
When I was a little girl, I can remember my father coming home with boxes of pastries from Rainbow Bakery; Russian Tea Cakes were my favorite with a swirly kind of chocolate and white cookie my second. Actually I would have liked to have had both in one sitting, but it wasn’t allowed, and I wasn’t old enough to go out and buy my own.
You might ask, what is a Russian Tea Cake? My answer would be: it’s hard to explain — but I’ll try. It appears to me that four or five different cakes are baked, cooled and broken up into large crumbs. The colors of the cake would be green (honest!), bright pink, yellow, white and chocolate. The crumbs are then mixed with a certain amount of raspberry preserves (and I’m sure this amount must be quite specific otherwise the cake would turn out to be one sticky mess!) The mixture of colored cakes and preserves or jam are then pressed into a large square or rectangular pan, and pressed down til the top of the whole mixture is flat. I’m guessing it’s then refrigerated for at least overnight. I’m also guessing that some rum flavoring figures in here somewhere. The entire chilled and flattened cake is then frosted with the most delicious and creamy pale pink icing and then cut into rectangles. Each rectangle is a serving (it’s actually enough for two) and that is Russian Tea Cake from my perspective. I’m pretty sure I’m correct. When I go to Rainbow, it’s almost always for the Russian Tea Cake. I ordered a whole Russian Tea Cake for my mother’s 85^th birthday — it was round and decorated, just like a birthday cake. De-​licious!
On Jewish holidays, all of the old favorites, including honey cakes, sponge cakes, mandel bread (not named after Mandy Patinkin in case you wondered) challahs etc. as well as wonderful Jewish rye bread also known in some parts as sisal bread — it will have caraway seeds in it — perhaps that’s what makes it sisal, not sure. You can go in there and order lunch, such as white fish salad or a bagel with lox and cream cheese. They used to have a little table and chair for enjoying lunches inside — not certain it’s still there.
Jewish bakeries once abounded in RI — that was the case when I was a little girl. Now that I have moved back to the Ocean State, I sadly have concluded that Rainbow Bakery, still owned for so many years by the Kaplan family, is, PERHAPS, the only one remaining. The bakery, I am told, now caters to large clients such as restaurants and other such venues. That’s their greatest source of revenue. And so, although they will have mostly everything you want right out front in the glass case, sometimes they won’t have EVERYTHING you want. And I think possibly they close early — I know they close early on Friday for Sabbath and are closed on Saturdays for Sabbath, as well. Because I have difficulty getting there when they are open, and because they don’t always have what I want when I get there, I have left off one star — would have liked to only have left off a half star. This bakery is a treasure and I pray it will stick around for a lot more years.

Let me start off by saying that the service here is great. The lady that ran the counter and the gentleman who came out from the back to assist another customer that came in shortly after i did were very nice.
I ordered an everything bagel with cream cheese after it was recommended by the lady at the counter. She said it was NY Style water boiled bagels. I love a great bagel so i couldn’t have passed up the opportunity. The Hus is a sucker for eclairs and it was valentines day so i figured that I’d get a half dozen.
Fast forward about 30 mins… i got home and opened my bagel which already had cream cheese applied. I ate half the bagel then noticed there was a black fiber (hair?) on the other half… The woman at the counter was wearing a fluffy black sweater so it’s possible that some snuck in there… ?
When the Hus came home he dove into the eclairs. To his dismay they had a weird chemical-​ish tang to them and a very peculiar after taste. We ended up throwing them out.
There wasn’t a large assortment of items available in the show case and what i ate of the bagel it was great.
Though i really wanted to love this Mom and Pop bakery sadly i will not return.

Have you ever had sisal bread? If not, allow me to introduce you. Sisal bread is a doughy seeded rye bread with a hard crust exterior. The only place I have found it is the Rainbow bakery. It just could be the ultimate bread for corn beef and pastrami but also great on it’s own. If you have never tried it, get to the Rainbow bakery. I just can not begin to describe in words how good this bread really is!
Oh the other products I have tried at this bakery were also quite good, but come for the sisal bread!

I had Rainbow Bakery do a custom cake for my BFF’s baby shower. I called ahead to see if they would be able to accommodate me and then I stopped in later with pictures so I could meet with the «cake boss» in person. He was extremely sweet, helpful, and honest. The cake came out gorgeous and everyone at the party seemed to agree.