Einstein Bros. Bagels — Restaurant in Bloomington

To start, the food is generally pretty good, and the staff is consistently friendly. There have been occasional troubles with enough staff, but those who show up seem to work hard. I'm normally here at least once a week. Well, before today...

Doing well when things go well is only part of the dance. It's how you handle the inevitable mistakes that really defines a great place. Today I found (for the second or third time) that to be less than ideal. For context, it's a bit over an hour round trip into here for me. I ordered our usual today, including an "avocado veg out" for my vegetarian wife. When I got home, my turkey sandwich was fine as usual, but hers had a big glob of some-other-sandwich gunk on top with a couple sizeable chunks of bacon embedded. It had clearly been cut with a knife from another sandwich, as there were also pieces of bacon drug through the kerf from the blade. I like bacon, but being all over the place, it turned her off of the sandwich completely. That sucks, but I get that mistakes happen.

So I called the store to see how they could fix it. The offered resolution (after the person answering the phone consulted the manager, who was apparantly too busy to talk to me directly a half hour before closing) was to put my name on some list for a free sandwich next time, and a near-meaningless "we're sorry we didn't live up to your expectations." I accepted, since there was no point in arguing with whoever answered the phone. They literally did the absolute minimum. No refund now for the bad sandwich; I have to come back another day to get a new sandwich. I usually order online, but now I have to go inside and wait next time. No acknowledgement that this was a pretty significant inconvenience with my hungry wife having to make something else to eat after I drove an hour to get us food. No expression that they feel bad for this happening. And the weakest apology ever making it sound like this is just my problem, as if smearing a random glob of meaty crap on a vegetable sandwich meets their standards just fine. Only my standards weren't met. 😂

I like eating here, and I'll probably go back - even though this review is probably getting stapled to "the board" next to my free sandwich voucher. 🤣 But I'm really, truly disappointed in the lazy way this was handled. And I'm not sure if getting my money back "someday later" is actually worth the hassle cause by the lost trust. I'm not excited about needing to open up everything in my bag just to make sure my order is correct, and I didn't get off the phone with much confidence that the underlying error which led to this situation is going to be addressed. Maybe the management will read this and take action, but since the hours listed on Google haven't matched the sign at the store for years, I'm not sure how likely that is either. 🤷‍♂️ Here's...

I don’t usually leave bad reviews, but I have never been so disappointed with an order. My boyfriend and I ordered a turkey-sausage and cheese breakfast sandwich with egg on a plain bagel, and a plain bagel with cream cheese. I assumed the sandwich was correct when she called his name for the to-go order, and we left after they gave us his bagel that they initially failed to make and put in the bag. We got in the car and noticed the sandwich was spicy on an Asiago bagel, so my boyfriend went back in to get the sandwich I ordered. They made him pay for the sandwich again, even though they are the ones who got the order wrong in the first place since we “already took the sandwich out of the store.” Excuse us for thinking they gave us the correct item and walking out of the store with it!! $30 later, we are eating our bagels and can barely bite through because they’re hard as a rock. He initially gave them a 20% tip. If only we knew in advance that this was going to happen, we wouldn’t have left a tip at all. I usually enjoy Einstein Bagels, but we definitely will not be returning to...

I have been to Einstein Bros Bagels several times before so I just knew that to expect, good food and fast service. The employees were very nice and the food was very average for Einstein Bros. They messed up both of our orders but were quick to fix the mistake. We will return, they have excellent bagel selections and I love the shmears!

Update: I am upgrading my review of Einstein Bagels to five stars from the previous rating of four stars because every time we go to Einstein's the management and staff are extremely friendly they always ensure that we have a good visit and the food is top-notch I think everyone in town should go visit this...