From its first publication in Cathedral in 1983, "A Small, Good Thing" was recognized by reviewers and critics as one of Carver's outstanding stories. In the New York Times Book Review, Irving Howe compares it to the earlier version of the story entitled "The Bath." He feels that teachers of creative writing who consider the earlier version superior, because of its tautness, cryptic nature, and symbolism, are wrong: "The second version, though less tidy and glittering, reaches more deeply into a human situation and transforms the baker from an abstract 'evil force' into a flawed human creature."

In the New Republic, Dorothy Wickenden singled out "A Small, Good Thing" as one of the best stories in the collection. She coupled it with the story "Cathedral," describing them both as "astute, even complex, psychological dramas." But she also criticized both stories for showing signs of sentimentality, and she ventured an opinion as to why this might be:

Perhaps because he doesn't quite trust the sense of hope with which he leaves his characters, the writing at the end becomes self-consciously simple and the scenes of resolution contrived. In "A Small, Good Thing" the stark realism of earlier scenes is replaced by rather pat symbolism about communion through suffering.

In the twenty years following its publication, "A Small, Good Thing" continued to attract attention from critics, who see it as an example of Carver's stylistic development from the sparse minimalism of the earlier stories to what Kathleen Westfall Shute in Hollins Critic has called "richer, more emotionally and artistically complex" work.