Big City Bagels and Subs — Restaurant in Austin

I like the food here, I’ve been a customer for years. But I have had one too many bad interactions with the owner to continue giving them my business. The last straws were as follows:

I ordered online, went to pick up my order, he said the online orders weren’t coming through to him so he never got it and the charge would be cancelled automatically. So I ordered in person again and went on my way. He still charged me for the online order as well as my in person order, so now I have to dispute it with my credit card company for being double charged.

Second, I walked in just the other day, maybe two days after the double charge incident, he said “for pickup?”, and I said “no id like to order”, to which he replied, and I quote, “Not today.” Just straight up refused to take my order and serve me, without any explanation other than “my gas is empty.” Whatever that means. And no he didn’t mean gas empty like he couldn’t cook, he was still cooking and making online orders for pickup. I think he was just saying he was tired so he would do any walk ins. That’s just my guess but man you should close if you don’t want to work.

Don’t support people like this, no matter how good the food is.

Edit to add: these are just the two examples in the past week that made me finally decide to stop supporting him. There have been numerous other occasions when I’ve seen him be a jerk. I got over that stuff, but the double charging and refusing to serve me crossed the line. The owner is just not someone you should give...

YES YES YES YES YES. Finally a real bagel in Austin. Best breakfast sandwich I've had since NYC. Nothing like a THEC with SPK to bring me back to my Jersey roots. Look at the size of this monster of a breakfast sandwich...double meat, double egg and double cheese. Every other "bagel" place in Austin charges at least $1-$2 more for much less. I know it doesn't look great in the pic, he forgot the ketchup until after he cut it, so it's a bit messy-looking. I don't see a $12 pastrami reuben in my future, but I'm sure it's fantastic. I will be back way too much for these breakfast sandwiches. Thank God I live nearby to the best bagel shop in Austin. Thank you for coming into our lives, Big City.

If I had to nitpick...the bagel was slightly undercooked, it could have used a little more of that delicious and crisp golden brown crust and the everything seasoning was almost all sesame and poppy seeds. But it didn't matter much.

Please frequent this place, so it stays open for years to come. Tell all your friends that this is what a real bagel tastes like and costs. I know it looks like an abandoned storefront from the outside, but it is alive and well inside. If they are allowed to do more to the outside or the windows to catch some eyes, they absolutely need to, because you can't tell it's open until you walk in. Not to mention, the sign looks like a defunct relic of the 90s (which I kinda love).

Thank you, Big City! I'll...

Other people's reviews are very positive, so this could have been a bad experience, but this was honestly a terrible first impression. I won't be coming back.

To start, I attempted to use their 20% off first time orders with their website, but had an issue where my payment wouldn't go through. going inside and attempting to explain the issue with staff was nearly fruitless as they did not seem able to provide this discount through their terminal, and so they gave me a bag of chips instead which was not worth the same value as the discount I would have received. Most of the staff also did not seem to understand English very well, which is fine, but added further difficulty to explaining the problem.

I then ordered ham and cream cheese on an everything bagel with a muffin and chips. The muffin was almost rock hard and dry. For $3.50 I would have hoped it would have been at least made recently. The bagel also did not taste good and easily fell apart, making it messy and hard to eat. The chips were fine I guess, nothing exceptional.

For $10 I simply can't recommend based on my experience. The staff does not seem equipped to handle problems outside of the ordinary and the food just isn't good compared to places like Einstein Bagels which costs about the same. Spend your money elsewhere, would get a...