Cocola Bakery

I love me some banana hot chocolate, but I recommend patronizing their Santana Row location instead. Unfortunately, in my last few visits to the Stanford spot, the cashiers seem to have lost the local café vibe and somehow made me feel like ordering a coffee was a severe inconvenience.
As a result, I’ll spend my hard earned dollars elsewhere.

I love Cocola! They have great sandwiches and desserts.
My favorite sandwich is the portabella mushroom sandwich! It tastes so meaty but has no meat at all. It’s served on a freshly toasted bread similar to ciabatta. It’s just to die for! This is my favorite go-​to item every time I come here.
The desserts are all very good but my favorite is the triple chocolate mousse. It’s light and fluffy yet so rich and creamy.

Good, reasonable spot for lunch at Stanford Shopping Center. Will say that by the time we got there to have some lunch they were out of Olivier Chicken Salad, Croissants, and smoked salmon. It was the Xmas — New Year’s week. One of us had a tuna salad, the other one had a portobello side. Both were fresh and good. Also had a café mocha which was huge and delicious. Desserts in the case looked delicious, but we did not have any. Service was kind of lackluster and the fact that you get food at one register and coffee at another is a little confusing.

Cakes and pastries are good, i dont like the employee who helped us, she wasnt using any gloves or tongs to reach for the small cakes i bought, and they have pastries on displays that they already ran out. she also mistakenly charged us extra cake that i didnt order. The other employees saw that there is a line waiting for one server and said to us, we will be helped soon and walked away. they should be more mindful about food handling and customer service.

Great place to grab a cup of coffee and a pastry. They have a very large selection of coffees and will make odd ones like Nutella latte.

It would be 5 star, but I find their lattes undrinkable. Seriously! Go for the desserts.
I used to frequent La Baguette around the corner until I tried their raspberry mousse. There is a little crunch in the middle that elevates this beyond the others.
Their crème brûlée is addictive. I’m more of a chocolate person, but their crème brûlée has something special.
Lunch is kind of expensive.
Too bad their check in bonus requires a coffee purchase!

The coffee was very good. However, the service was impersonal, the space is an unplanned hodge-​podge of furniture, and the pastries we ordered were bland.

These are the best macarons ever! They don have as many flavors as others but i do like them better than Chantel Guillion (sp?). The bakery is also very nicely decorated and the customer service was also good. :) I hope to come back soon mostly for the macarons!

Stopped by for a quick cup of coffee. Ordered the Mocha Bianco (their version of white chocolate mocha). The place also serves sandwiches, salads, pastries and ice cold drinks. Service was good and people were friendly.

The desserts here are amazing! I love their chocolate croissant. I come here usually with a book order a latte and a pastry and sit outside if it’s a beautiful day.
The inside is very nice too, more cozy. You can borrow a book from their library and read it while you’re sitting there.

— Chicken salad $ 10.95: white mean chicken breast, mixed greens, marinated/​pickled carrots. Served with baguette
— Croissant: pretty tasty, though wasn’t anything out of the ordinary since it wasn’t as flaky and melt in your mouth as others
— Brioche: too dry for my taste, and the chocolate chips were not my thing
Great if you want to come eat something relatively quickly at the mall that’s healthy. They forgot our order actually, so we had to follow up.
Outdoor seating is dog friendly, which is a huge plus

Warm inside, might want to consider fans or AC but my reason for this review is the customer service I received from Evan today was excellent. Thank you!

Horrible service at this location.
I have been to the Santana Row location many many times since they first opened years ago (used to live in South Bay). I ordered the same beverage I always get at SR and it was completely off. This was at a Wednesday afternoon at 4:00 pm and there were barely any customers there. (only 2 tables) so the bad service wasn’t due to them being busy.
I went to the staff and mentioned how what I get at SR location is different and if they can adjust the ingredient. They started arguing with me in a very rude way. Needless to say I left my untouched cup on the counter and started walking out while the 2 servers started saying things in spanish in a bad tone and banging my cup around. I turned back and said can I speak to the manager and without even looking at me the guy says she’s not here.
I will never be back here again! Luckily Palo Alto is full of much better coffee shops.

Large café offered a variety of food options: coffees, soups, sandwiches, salads, & desserts. Their sandwich options are pretty standard but decent for the price range. In my opinion, you go here for their pastries. I really like their macaroons. They have both regular & large sizes.

So we’re visiting from Texas and the Stanford Center was one of our visiting destinations. I thought this place was so cute – the walls are printed with lovely quotes that makes a bookie squeal inside. The interior is that of a comfortable, yet elegant enough café with a couch area inside. Lovely interior.
We had the portabello sandwich – it is balsamic-​flavoured with basil and mozzarella cheese. They use ciabatta for it. I did notice that they refrigerate their sandwiches beforehand and just toast it up again when they serve it to you. No complaints there, I guess, but I would prefer a fresh sandwich. The taste was good. It’s simple enough to make at home, though, and though I liked the balsamic flavour, it was a little overpowering. I added a little more salt to soften it, but I guess that’s just my thing. It came with a potato salad which left more to be desired. A little bland, but crunchy which I liked.
Mom had the chai latte – perfectly foamy, flavourful. Big size, too. I had the larger (2.99; 1.49 I think for the small) hazelnut macaron, and it was good to my taste. Not too sweet, crunchy, but yes I think it needed a little more oomph to the flavour.
Anyway, I did thoroughly enjoy the place. Wish I tried more sweets and pastries, I was just too full and had a long day of discovering CA. Would I be back? Yeah! Service that day was very nice. Guy at the counter was very welcoming. Thank you!

Cute little bakery in the Stanford shopping mall. Great variety of pastries and light lunches. I had the tomato mozzarella and basil sandwich it was pretty good. I also tried the Nutella latte, very good but sweet! That is expected though because it’s made with a high dose of Nutella. Little expensive but you pay for the ambiance and the wifi, which I could not connect to. Overall, it’s a nice lunch spot or a coffee spot if you’re into light meals.

The Palo Alto location of Cocola is more spacious and open in comparison to the Santana Row spot. I tried my usual fresh mozzarella, tomato, and basil sandwich and it did not disappoint. They have a variety of pastries and if you check-​in on Unilocal you can get a free pastry with a coffee order. The location is a bit hidden compare to some of the other spots in the mall but it is nice because you can get away from the crowds.

It’s hard to find a decent place to grab a quick lunch at Stanford Shopping Center. In the middle of a long day of shopping, my mom, sister, and I came across Cocola and decided to try it. We got one fresh tomato, mozzarella, and basil sandwich and one grilled portobello mushroom sandwich. The side on the mozzarella sandwich was good, but the potato side for the portobello sandwich was horrible! It was dry and had no flavor at all. The sandwiches were pretty good though!
Would I come back? Maybe if I’m starving at Stanford again!

i had a craving for a lil’ somethin’ sweet the other day, so i popped in here to pick up 2 small macarons.
at 3 in the afternoon, they had already sold out of a few of their usual flavours, namely lemon, rose, and coffee (as i later found out). since i didn’t wish to purchase a large macaron, i selected the smaller versions of the hazelnut and coffee macarons.
i saw the staff pull 2 macarons from the case, and go to the back to retrieve a to-​go container, so i went to the register to pay. i waited, and Waited, and WAITED… how long does it take to put 2 macarons in a takeway container???
several minutes later, he came back and informed me that they were also sold out of the coffee macarons, would i like a different flavour? so i reluctantly went with the mango… i really really was in the mood for coffee that day! and i was disappointed that he couldn’t tell which flavours were actually in the display case when i initially asked. he placed the hazelnut and mango macarons in a takeaway box, i paid $ 2.80 for my treats, and headed out.
the mango didn’t taste like mango at all, it did taste a little fruity, and had a creamy filling, but i was seriously missing the mango taste. the hazelnut had a good nutty taste, but i could have used more. considering both were so small, i’m not too surprised that i had a hard time tasting the mango and hazelnut, but they should have been infused with more flavour… kinda like how miniature-​sized cupcakes are amped up with flavour so that those who opt for the smaller versions of their favourite baked goods don’t feel cheated.
needless to say, this was a disappointing visit to cocola and the 2 macarons were certainly not worth $ 1.40 each. perhaps i’ll try the larger versions next time… or skip this altogether and go to chantal guillon instead.

Seriously the worst customer service.
Came here to get a cake to go, was ignored for a while. Then the cashier said she’ll be there in a while… In a WHILE? Ok. At least she was honest, she did take a while.
The cake selection is horrible, they ran out of pretty much everything.
The cashier was rude and had a general «what the f!@# do you want?!» attitude. The only reason this place is not out of business is because poor souls that think they won’t be treated with hostility keep coming here unaware of how disgusting the service is here…
So, if you feel like your day is going a bit too well and you’re in a desperate need to communicate with pathetically rude employees, this is THE place to come