Einstein Bros. Bagels — Restaurant in Carmel

Jockey through the frantically crowded parking lot (liberally sprinkled with cavernous drainage pits) and squeeze past the endless drive thru line to find a parking spot. Wait in line to place your order. Wait in yet another line to pay for your order (if you're lucky both lines will be staffed by the same harried employee who shuttles back and forth between them, thus greatly contributing to overall efficiency). Send a member of your party to wait in line for a table while you wait in line (more like a scrum) for your food. If you manage to find a table that isn't liberally coated with crumbs and other food debris, getting there could prove a challenge. You'll need to wend your way between the haphazard chaos of tables and chairs, mostly occupied by immensely self-satisfied persons leaning back comfortably whilst discoursing loudly and authoritatively on any number of subjects and fondling their coffee cups. Would not be surprised to learn that some of them live in the dining area. The specially designed drink area encourages nonlinear movement, maximizing opportunities to wait in line for what you want. Tea dispenser empty yet again? No worries - just stand in another off-to-the-side line somewhere up front and eventually a friendly staffer will half fill your container (they're running low back there and need to conserve, dontcha know). Unfortunately they're out of the first two bagels you want, but hey! Choice three is available. Too bad they got your order wrong, but if you stand in line again they'll be happy to correct it. Eventually. (Before asking for a correction, be sure to weigh the time likely required against your remaining life expectancy.) Good workers, considering how overwhelmed they seem, and good food at decent prices. You'll just need to decide whether it's worth the hassle; could be, except perhaps if you're hungry and wait times push thirty minutes. Certainly, lots of other folks seem to like it. Need to change the name to Linesteins.

Update: other family members remain enthralled, so we persist in visiting this place. I'll add it to the very long list of things I don't understand. In the meantime a couple of observations based on enduring additional visits. There's been a tendency to combine the order and payment lines, which is a welcome development. Iced tea appears to be even more precious than before; this exceedingly rare commodity is now available only behind the counter, and only in the company of enormous amounts of ice, so that the fluid content is as minimal as possible, like ice anointed with a spritzer of tea. Order accuracy appears unchanged; asking to have an ingredient left off is like asking staff to square a circle. Utensils may or may not be available for extracting materials you didn't want on your bagel without rendering your fingers covered with schmear. Fortunately, marginal bathrooms are available for decontamination purposes. Despite apparent visual evidence to the contrary I HAVE on rare occasion observed staff emptying the overflowing trash receptacles. Two stars for meeting my low expectations. All right - enough complaining. Now that we're done here I think I'll go get an actual lunch somewhere else.

Back on behalf of a sick family member who thinks this place is the bees knees. Waiting, as usual, but amusing myself in a twisted way by watching the endless parade of customers returning their messed up orders. However, the crowd seems a little thinner today than usual. An ordinary high school basketball court could probably serve as an appropriately sized waiting area today. Usually they need Lucas Oil Stadium. I don't get the appeal but it's clear I'm in...

You ready for a story? It's worth the read I promise.

Food: ehh Service: absolutely horrendous Ambiance: a joke

I don't ever leave reviews but I'm hotter than a pickle bug in a pepper patch. Let me start off by saying, this location is the absolute worst location I've ever visited. I live near it and have went a few times and every single time something is wrong with my food. Either it's not made right or something is missing or shoot, sometimes they give me the complete wrong item. Where do y'all get your employees Backpage? LOL

Coffee: bland Iced coffee: tastes like when you leave it on your table for 4 hours and all the ice melts and it's all watered down. Food: it's , Bland at best, but hey sometimes it's over cooked and burnt but at least that adds some flavor. Oh, and let me not forget it's never hot. I always gotta warm that stuff up when I get home. Thank God I have an air fryer.

Look I'm from the south and we actually season our food and our fast food restaurants food actually tastes good. These folk up here have no sense of hospitality. They don't know how to speak to people, and they definitely have no customer service skills. Not to mention they don't know how to make food taste good. Do better yall.

I'm writing this whole review due to an incident today. My wife went up there to get three sandwiches and 4 hash-browns. She got back home and I looked in the bag and what did I see? No hash-browns. Oh perfect right? They forgot something again. So I have her call up there to speak with someone and we had to call four separate times and on the third call someone picked up and hung up instantly. Finally got through on the fourth call and the young lady that answered was instantaneously and incredibly rude right off the muscle. I mean right off the grip. My wife explained to her what she ordered and what was in the bag, she told her that the hash-browns were missing and she said well that's not my problem you should have checked the bag....... She is partly right but as a customer, I should not have to check my bag to make sure my little hashbrowns are in the bag. Your employees should listen to what the customer is asking for. But who knows right? Any how my wife asked her for a resolution for the situation at hand and the (manager) said "well we are closed now and there is nothing I'm willing to do, bye." And she hung up the phone.

Little girl I hope you see this review and I hope you learn from your mistakes. You are in the service industry. Act like it. I know it's a pain to deal with customers sometimes but if you're not able to handle it, then find a different line of work and (Don't be rude). Life is too short to have an attitude all the time. Do your job properly and do it with pride you'll go so far in life. Employees like you are the reason restaurants get bad reviews. DO...

I have been going to this location for a long time. I ordered a ham egg and cheddar on an everything bagel at the drive-through. When I got to the window she said a different order and she told me she was confused between my order and the another. The price seems high but paid. Then looked at the receipt and I noticed she had charged me for two eggs. I got her attention and I told her she rang it up wrong because I didn’t ask for two eggs. My past receipts also show sub to cheddar and she explained that as well on why it showed Swiss. She didn’t swear but I know she was ticked off as she was slamming register and talking out loud. Now they had to remake my sandwich. I get the same sandwich every time with no issues. It’s not my fault she got confused and rang up the sandwich wrong. I told her she didn’t need to get mad; she made comment that I was trying to make her lose her job. Like what???? She’s been at this location for a long time and I know it was busy and I prob should have gone inside but I thought drive thru would be better. It’s Monday, hectic and maybe she was stressing; I don’t know but the comment I was trying to make her lose her job was ridiculous. There was no intention on this. She did say have a good day repeatedly when I was trying to explain things. Happy Monday. Not sure now if I’ll go back to...