The Sweet Lobby

Customer service is meh, but the cupcakes are moist and flavorful. After 3 visits of randomly picking the cupcakes, it’s safe to say they all are very good. I enjoy bringing them home and pouring a glass of milk. This is a good place to grab dessert if you’re in the area.

This place has been gradually going downhill but I do see why. Friends who have been coming here for months once raved about it and said it is an absolute dessert check in spot… Now they avoid it. I wanted to like this place so badly since all I’ve heard were great reviews and even Unilocal gives this place a 4 star rating… They won Cupcake Wars, so I said they can’t be terrible. Welp I learned my lesson.
The cupcakes were so bland I couldn’t tell chocolate from vanilla. It’s almost as if they mistook flour for confectioners sugar. Half the cupcakes were dry as a desert and the other half were an odd crunchy texture. They look lovely however the taste is just not there.
Their macarons are even more disappointing because of the price you pay for a stale flavor lacking coin. And their staff is less than optimistic. We came in with 4 hours to close and whenever I asked if they had more in the back, the consistent response was its too late.
If I’m ever in the area, I’ll be sure to drop off a bag of sugar in their kitchens.

My husband and I popped by here after dinner at the Garrison on a Saturday night. We were looking for a new cupcake place and had heard good things about the Sweet Lobby.
Sweet Lobby is small and easy to miss but typical for DC I suppose. The employees did not really seem that interested in helping us but I asked if they had Strawberry Champagne in the back and they got one for me. My husband went with the vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting.
While both were decent, neither was outstanding. They were fine and a little bland. Certainly not worth the price tag. Looks like we will be sticking with Georgetown Cupcake in the future, we won’t be back to Sweet Lobby.

I wish I could give this 5 stars so badly! I came into Sweet Lobby tonight hoping to get a dozen cupcakes for a coworker’s birthday. I had lived near barracks row before and fell in love with this bakery. I was very excited to share it with my office hoping they would love it too.
I entered the store, was greeted by a nice young women behind the counter, and began to pick out a dozen. I looked in the bottom right corner of the display at the beautifully detailed cupcakes and saw something moving. It was a bug. I figured no big deal, old building, a few bugs probably got inside. It wasn’t just a fly or small winged insect that entered the doorway recently. There lied a disgusting looking bug ON TOP OF the cupcake. Then I noticed there wasn’t just the one, but I noticed two, then three, then four. The numbers kept growing. I ended up seeing what looked like an infestation of the display case right up front where many customers go to view their purchase.
I am utterly disappointed in the cleanliness of the facility and wish I could have written a good review. Instead I left Sweet Lobby tonight disgusted and empty handed.

I’ve had an assortment of cupcakes from this place before and was never really impressed with them. They were good but didn’t live up to the hype of being from a cupcake wars winner.
Today though I had the fire breathing chocolate dragon (awesome name) cupcake and it was lovely. Sweet but not too rich chocolate frosting atop a light chocolate base. Also, it had a dragon on top of it, how could it not be good?

This is a macaron-​only review. We’ve heard a lot about this place and wanted to find good macarons near our hood. These are not them. We’ve never had such hard, chewy macarons. You know Chewy Chips Ahoy? These are like a bag of Chewy Chips Ahoy you left open for a couple days — a hard chew. That’s the texture and consistency of three of the six macarons we got. Two were closer to the correct consistency but clearly too hard. Only one, the goat cheese, was the recognizable consistency. The flavors were OK, though the lavender was borderline inedible, like eating perfume — a half-​baked brick of perfume. There’s a way to work in lavender without making it into a Lush store. Very disappointed. Maybe these were stale macarons that were sitting out all week (we came in Friday night).

I bought a box of 16 macarons and grabbed one of each flavor on a Thursday afternoon. My group was very excited to try them as this place comes highly recommended. We were unfortunately very disappointed as all of the «macs» we’re crispy and hard. Given that we paid almost $ 30 for the box, I expected better qualify.
To give the business credit, I did call and tell them my dilemma. The woman on the phone was apologetic and offered a refund, but it was too far out of the way to make a return trip and bring them back.

Sweet treat always my favorite sweet lobby always have different cupcake and macarons to pick from the people are so nice and helpful. Highly recommend this sweet place

Apologies beforehand to all involved.
This repost represents my first ever «updated» review. As much as I’m opposed to this sort of thing, I am literally forced to comment.
As I have previously revealed, I’m not necessarily a fan of cupcakes. None-​the-​less I’m compelled to source them for those among me who do appreciate exceptional examples.
I was first made aware of Sweet Lobby via Cupcake Wars which they won with a beautiful and creatively constructed «Green Tea» cupcake.
Today makes my fifth visit (1−2−3−4−5) traveling to the shop, finding increasingly difficult to find parking and entering the shop only to be told sorry, not today. No Green Tea cupcakes.
Why is the award winning product not readily available?
Having successfully run businesses for 30 plus years, this persisting phenomenon has gone from ‘inconvenienced anguish’ to ‘perplexed astonishment.
I give up

I’m always curious about this place whenever I’m strolling down Capitol Hill. It’s tiny with no seating area, and it has a sticker on the front advertising that they won an episode of cupcake wars. It looks like their specialties are cupcakes and macaroons, but since they won for their cupcakes, we decided to try those.
My sweet potato marshmallow cupcake: the sweet potato cake portion was pretty good. Not too sweet, the right amount of sweet potato taste. The marshmallow was overloaded with cinnamon. I started coughing because I think I inhaled more cinnamon than I ate. Also, cinnamon is definitely tasty, but not an entire mouthful. It ruined the rest of the cupcake for me.

I really like the earl grey, cappuccino, and pistachio macarons. The pistachio cupcake is great too!

Some of the best cupcakes around. I have tried Georgetown, Magnolia, Sprinkles, Crumbs, Dots etc. and would put these at the top of my list! I have only tried two flavors, but based on how good those two were I see myself trying the entire list.
The Lemon Cream was amazing– and I know my lemon cake, that was the flavor of my wedding cake! The cupcake was so moist, fluffy and full of homemade lemon cream in the middle.
My husband ordered the Pineapple inside out, which is something I would not normally want to try. I tried it, and almost went back to get my own! There a little pieces of baked pineapple inside that taste very fresh giving it a ton of flavor.
Ugh I wish they were open right now, I can’t wait to go back to try Sweet Lobby’s macaroons.
Just saying, I know a lot of people that would wander into this shop at 1am if it were open that late.

I’ve had The Sweet Lobby bookmarked on Unilocal for awhile and after a fantastic meal at Sushi Capitol, I strolled up the street here with my friend for a dessert.
It’s a small place but filled with a plethora of rotating cupcake options. When I came on Thursday, I decided to try two things at once that The Sweet Lobby is known for: macaroons and cupcakes. I chose a mactop for $ 4.00 which is a cupcake with a macaroon on top. I ended up going for the chocolate vanilla violet flavored one. I thought the cupcake was a bit dry. The frosting is a dollop and not spread out evenly (intentional and by design), and it was hard to get the cupcake, frosting, and macaroon in one bite so I ended up eating it section by section.
On top of it they charge $ 0.50 if you want a box and/​or bag. I opted for a napkin and ended up eating the cupcake on the go which kind of further sullied the experience.
I like the impressive variety of cupcakes and rotating flavors and that they use Square so I can get my receipt emailed to me but it was dark and cramped inside (I wasn’t sure it was even open when I popped by after lunch) and the cupcake was small and slightly dry.
For the price and size of cupcake that I got, it seemed expensive but then I recalled I had a macaroon on top, and that was pretty good so I’d come back to try some other interesting combination of flavors.

Passion crème is extrodinarily meh which is so disappointing. Butter cream frosting was cloyingly sweet in a very empty fluff way. I definitely prefer cream cheese frosting apparently.
Thankfully strawberry champagne made up for it! Tastes just like champagne creamy inside!
Butterscotch was good but nothing special.

Love Macarons!
Last time I was in DC, I had macaron from some restaurant and I was very disappointed. A friend (she bakes own macaron at home) suggested The Sweet Lobby. I tasted her macaron before and both of us love Laduree, so this place must be good…
Location: From Metro Center, take blue/​silver/​orange line to Eastern Market (6^th station). When you go out of the metro station, just look around for Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts. The Sweet Lobby is very close to the Dunkin Donuts and across from the Starbucks. You will find a small bakery with finicky door nob.
I ordered three flavors of macarons that day. Pistachio, salted caramel, and green tea. I carried a little bag all the way back to my hotel but while I was waiting for my ride back to the airport, these macarons started calling my name…“eat me…”. how could I resist such a sweet voice?
First one I tried was green tea. Only a hint of sweetness, I really enjoyed the green tea flavor. I don’t like when they make green tea too sweet. I was very pleased, I decided to eat one more. The second one I tried was pistachio. I normally love pistachio, but for some reasons, this wasn’t what I expected. Perhaps I should have tried pistachio before green tea. After the second one I still had a few more mins until my ride came, so rather than just carrying one macaron and worry about getting crushed in my bag, I thought it would be just good to eat here. Salted caramel was what I wasn’t expecting but they were still good. I like the texture of shells and filling. They nicely blend together to create the ultimate sweets (in my opinion).
I bought three to share when I get back home but I ended up eating all of them before I even got to the airport. Sorry my friend, next time, I will buy at least a half dozen, so I think one or more will make it home.
They also sell cupcakes. They all looked so yummy! next time I may have to try their a cupcake or two.
I started my trip to the sweet lobby from China town. I came to the area just to get macarons from here. (took two metro lines and that wasn’t that easy for someone like me just visiting for a day). Did it worth my trip? I think so. I will be back

Sweet Tooth Sensation
My favorite cupcake and macaroon place in DC hands down! The flavors are unique and if you can’t choose between a macaroon or cupcake, you can get both.
Cupcake MUST try
Salted Caramel
Macaroon MUST try
Hazelnut Praline Salted Caramel
Pistachio

Sweet Lobby is absolutely delicious. In fact, I have never had anything that I didn’t like. The cupcakes are some of the best cupcakes in the area IMO and they certainly keep me coming back. I love the cheesecake ones and the ones with some type of filling (like Bourbon). Their famous ones from the Food Network, the ones with the macrons on top are good as well but a tad pricier.
Before coming to Sweet Lobby, I was never really a macaron person and ate them very rarely. Now I am obsessed and I feel like it is my obligation to stop in and get some whenever I am in Barracks Row on Saturday nights for church service. The macarons melt in your mouth and I love the variety of flavors, include some that are quite unique and wouldn’t seem like they go together.
The only thing I hate about this store is how packed it gets since the store is about the size of a closet and the fact that it is closed on Sundays (hence why I can only get them after church on Saturdays). I also wish they had better packaging for macarons other than a plastic bag if you only want to get a few. That seems to dry the macarons out pretty quickly.
Hint: This place is always swamped around the holidays and in the afternoons, they tend to run out of a lot of flavors.

We had one day to see Washington D.C. and had decided to dine at Rose’s Luxury after a day full of sightseeing. One of the Unilocal reviewers mentioned the Sweet Lobby was nearby the restaurant so we added it to our itinerary.
We found it very easily and were really excited to hear it was a previous winner of Food network’s Cupcake Wars! The bakery’s offerings were all mouth watering, but I was able to narrow it down to a lemon cupcake and peanut butter and jelly macaron. It’s true that I’d eat anything with a cream cheese frosting, but the lemon cupcake was exceptional. The macaron was delicious as well and it was nice to know that their macarons feature California almonds and are gluten free.
If you are lucky enough to be in the area, definitely stop here.

Here’s the deal: I’m not a big supporter of the cupcake fad. I’ve tried a lot of cupcake shops in my time, and I’ve found many of them to be, well, giant disappointments. The price, $ 3 – 4 dollars per cupcake, often times does not justify such an indulgence. So its been a while since I’ve ventured to one of these little shops to specifically try their cupcakes.
I had heard wonderful things about the cupcakes at The Sweet Lobby, in particular, that this little boutique bakery near Eastern Market had won an episode of Cupcake Wars on the Food Network. So I ventured out here, with an open mind and a craving for something sweet, to see what the hoop-​la was all about.
Can you say DELICIOUS?! I loved that there so many unique flavors! Strawberry champagne! Pecan Bourbon! Inside out pineapple! It took me 20 minutes to decide on a flavor. There was just too many creative options for me to make a quick decision.
I ultimately settled on the Pistachio Swirl and the S’Mores cupcakes. Each cake was extremely moist and soft. I have never been a fan of super sugary desserts, but the cupcakes here are not piles of sugar, they are the perfect amount of sweetness. If you are a lover of all-​things-​pistachio, the pistachio swirl is a delectable treat. To my surprise, the S’Mores cupcake had a cookie crust on the bottom of the cake, which was delicious. What a gold mine! These little cakes were heaven in my mouth.
I exercised some amount of self-​control and I did not buy any macarons while I was here. I will be back. If you are looking for a delicious cupcake that lives up to its name, stop in here!

I’ve had genuine macarons from France before and while Sweet Lobby is alright, it does not hold up to the standards of Pierre Herme, Francois Payard, or Laduree. Of course, given that it’s DC, Sweet Lobby does a pretty good job of being one of the better macaron shops.
Located in Eastern Market, Sweet Lobby is a very small shop that specializes in macarons and cupcakes but also make other pastries like madeleines, eclairs, etc. Their owner actually won Food Network’s Cupcake Wars once, so they get that prestige and honor. Prices are pretty reasonable — $ 2.75 for a cupcake and $ 1.80 for a macaron. $ 29 for a dozen cupcakes and $ 10.50 for a box of six macarons and $ 27 for the Barracks Row box (16 macarons). So if you purchase more, you pay less per macaron or cupcake. There are a range of flavors that vary from day to day. Similar to Georgetown Cupcake, they have daily flavors like vanilla and chocolate, but they also post their day-​to-​day flavors like chocolate mint, s’mores, or green tea pistachio on their website.
When I came here, I ordered two macarons. I ended up getting green tea and rose. The macarons were okay, although the shell was pretty hard since it was closing time and I imagine they had been sitting there all day. It just didn’t look or taste fresh. However, the flavors of the green tea and rose were evident. I’ve definitely had better macarons, but they are not bad for this area. And the prices are very cheap compared to other cupcakeries. I’ve seen pictures of macarons on top of cupcakes which looked really good. I’ll have to try one another time. As I mentioned before, it’s a tiny shop but it is very homey and cozy inside. The staff all seem very friendly too (although given that they deal with sweets 24/​7, how can you not be?).
If you’ve got a sweet tooth, check out Sweet Lobby.