O'Brien's Bakery & Cafe

UPDATE: Sadly Obie's closed July 2017.

Obie's! Man they are a great, old school bakery that is a dying breed. Phenomenal pastry... especially the turnovers. Surviving barely though...lots of regulars and locals.

I've been going to Obie's since they were over in Wolly, '06. Great donuts, turnovers, cakes, and especially the bear claws! Old fashioned hi-test delicious coffee. Nothing pretentious about the coffee/pastry.

Like most things in Wolly, the great expanse is mainly due to Chinese owning land and controlling the rent, unfairly.... lots of nice empty buildings and store fronts due to negotiations of liquor licenses or food permits. Obie's moved out of Wolly due to the increase in rent...which the shop is now an addition for Great Chow seating. To be fair, I'm all for capitalism and the American dream, but how many bloody Oriental food places does one city need?!

The move to Vernon was a last ditch effort to put a finger in the cracking dyke. The area is part of the granite industry, rotten roads full of potholes and big trucks moving about.

They now tend to do large orders for Harvard University and other large social events. To even the keel they started up with hot dogs and small sandwiches. Downside is that the decor is God awful, food is ok, but stick with the pastry they got that right. Last nail in the coffin... not enough people work there, but the service is good if you are patient.

Old school, I'd give my left nut to have Wolly Square back to its former 1999 glory.

This location, unfortunately, is more hidden and obscure than their original Beale Street spot O'Brien's had for so long in Wollaston. To go out of your way for this? Ehhh...

It's mainly regular American bakery fare (turnovers, cookies, etc.) but with some Irish items like soda bread. However, if you look deep, the bakery has a couple of Scandinavian baked goods, a real throwback when there were a lot of people from Scandinavian countries that resided in Quincy.

I tried the marzariners, which are Swedish tarts made of almond paste and the ones here are very sweet. Definitely need black coffee or unsweetened tea with this pastry. Other than that, it was okay. I suppose if you had a Swedish pastry craving and Ikea wasn't going to hack it, this might be okay.

I tried the blueberry scone and I feel like it's not as good as before. Maybe my expectations for baked goods is higher but it's just not that great. The interior of the scone is a bit drier than others I've had/made.

The service was not exactly friendly from my experience. They're not horrible there but the cashiers aren't exactly too excited to see you there. Maybe because the bakery's kinda dark inside.

For classic baked goods--breads, pastries, etc.--what a great little spot. What I was really surprised by is how good their dine-in food is. Without fail, the greatest hashbrowns I have EVER had came from this place. They're crispy and cheesy with just the right amount of softness and grease. They were out of a lot of stuff randomly though, like orange juice, I think because not many people come here to eat.

Too bad they moved to a new location. It's a bit inconvenient to get to, but I'm guessing they needed more space for a bigger kitchen. It is, primarily a bakery.

Not impressed with the service at all. There were 2 people standing in the back when I came in. I said good morning, no acknowledgement either time. When I ordered it really felt as though it was an effort to get 2 pastries. Pastries are quite good. Unfortunately, they were both thrown in the same bag so completely squished.

Great bread. Decent lunch.

Next time will probably grab some bread Togo.

Their cakes look delicious - haven't tried those yet.

Very glad to rediscover this little gem.
Old fashion cookies, great breads but special orders on holidays only for snow flake rolls wish they were available at least on weekends.
Frosting is the way I remember old fashion sugar ... Yummy try the half moons or sugar free apple turn overs.
Special order holiday cakes. Ordered Saint Patrick's Day cup cakes, Irish Bread & cookies that all my company raved about not having baked goods taste so good since childhood

Awful pastries using fillers and canned, sugary, goopy fake fruit. Overall, the only good thing about this place is the price. Burger patty was grey and unappetizing. Frozen, maybe? Blech. Pass.

My bf ordered my birthday cake from Obriens and it was delicious! I then ordered Butterfly cupcakes for my nieces birthday and not only were they ready next day, but they were adorably decorated and were also moist and delicious I'm so glad I found this neighborhood bakery they also have sugar free options!
My basset hound also loves their homemade doggie treats!

I'm done with O'briens. Which is a shame because they are so close to us that we could walk for breakfast (which is always yummy). However the last two times I have gone have left me extremely let down (today just about furious). Last time I went, I went in a little after 7 and had to wait for forever. His one employee didn't show up even close to on time and left me waiting for my call in order.

Today takes the cake though (NPI). I went in for a sandwich for lunch. Pulled in at about 11:50am. They couldn't figure out the person in front of me's credit card on their machine because of the chip or something. It was HOT in there. I finally get to the counter and ordered a hot pastrami sandwich. While I'm waiting, I go grab a loaf of bread that's "day old bread". I put it on the counter and look- there are flies all over the INSIDE of the packaged bread. I almost threw up in my mouth. He graciously offered me a new loaf for the same price but there's no way I can look at their bread the same way again. Meanwhile, 5 minutes pass. Ten. Fifteen. TWENTY!! Again, it's starting to feel like it's 85 degrees in there and I'm 40 weeks pregnant. Then the lady who's making my sandwich comes out and asks what color mustard I want on it. There's only one other lady getting a sandwich! You couldn't have prepped the sandwich while the pastrami was heating up TWENTY MINUTES AGO?! But then I look around and see the flies flying around and think that it was probably a good idea not to have my sandwich sitting around for twenty minutes. I finally received my ONE sandwich 25 minutes later.

Then, to round out the visit, the other lady who ordered a cold cut sandwich? The owner came out and said that he didn't feel right making her her cold cut sandwich because "the meat didn't look right". Meaning their cold cuts were starting to turn. Come on- what kind of place is this?!

Amazing strawberry shortcake! Needed a cake for my mom's birthday, since she doesn't like cake, I asked O'brien's to make a strawberry shortcake that said Happy Birthday Mom! Not only did the cake come out amazing, I was called the day before to make sure I wanted whipped frosting!
AMAZING taste, decoration with the whipped frosting was outstanding, can't wait to get more goodies from here