Brothers Bagel — Restaurant in Chattanooga

First visit:

Sweet spot. I hope they are very successful… the bagels are legit.

Two weeks later:

After going back a second time for carry out and finding they missed items in my order (no one starved, but the staff overlooked checking my order and we didn’t get a couple items), I went back a third time. I regret that the service was very unfriendly… food good. Crowded, but not a horribly long wait.

I decided to check my bag (after my last experience I was skeptical they got my order right)… and I was right…

As I sorted through the bag, I mentioned to the barista staffer that I think I may be missing a few items. To which he replied that I should “look in the bottom”… no offer to help me in discerning if my order was right… just a little push-back from a young team member who didn’t seem to care enough to engage in a helpful manner.

So I had to unpack my order while the staffer watched …and had to inventory my order while this kid simi-ignored me (he was making coffee) in a way (weird) (odd)… there was no receipt attached to bag—pure recall and inventory on my part, again while staff kinda looked on in a casual disinterested manner.

Missing: one bagel and two sides of cream cheese.

So, after getting the attention of the staffer, I requested the missing items. And stepped back into the waiting line. No biggie…

The barista staffer requested the items and indicated to whomever he made the request that the missing items go “…in this bag…”. He pointed to my open bag and went back to making coffee. I figured (to myself) cool, we are all on the same page (and these kids are indifferent).

After about 5 minutes, one of the expo staffers walked up to the counter and held up (what I presumed was) a wrapped bagel in one hand and two containers of cream cheese in the other… and she stared out as if someone would know what she was thinking—no words, no anything—except for two hands in the air and a quasi-blank stare.

…so I leaned in and asked if that was my missing food, she nodded as if to say “yes, I think so”. So I asked her to please go ahead and place the items in the bag that was sitting right in front of her (the same bag that she had earlier been instructed was missing the items)… weird.

What happens next was the clincher… after I indicated that my bag was the one there in front of her, and suggesting she put the items she was holding-up into that bag… she literally got a frustrated (?) (maybe a “this is too hard”) look on her face that made me feel like I was a hassle to her, and she moved her hands over the top of the open bag and dropped the items in from about 10” above as she simultaneously turned her back to me and went back to work.

Kids these days…

Not a warm and fuzzy feeling for sure. And kinda made me wonder if this place emphasizes (or even buys into) the importance of helping customers feel appreciated. And if their team understands the importance of friendly accuracy in the food services business.

It’s a busy place. Not for the faint of heart—food service is tough.

Doubt I’ll go back… and/or...

I WANTED to love this place. I watched and waited for it to open and waited for the hype to die down before going in. My first visit, at 11am on a Friday most of the bagels were gone. Went back the next day at 8am got my lox sandwich and it was ok. I prefer more CC so my next visit I was sure to ask for it. You would have thought I was speaking French when I did. But I paid $25 for a lox bagel with extra cream cheese and a cinnamon bagel and schmear, this was 1/16/25 and the first bagel is what my ‘extra cream cheese’ looked like. The cinnamon bagel, my boss’ bagel had a 1.5 inch thick slab of cc. So today I have nearly the same discussion with what seemed like everyone in the front of the house, The person who made my bagels wrote down ‘Lox on everything extra cream cheese, no tom.’ And ‘blueberry bagel with plain schmear.’ The second picture is what I got, AGAIN. It’s frustrating because I live in Soddy and work in Chattanooga, waking up extra early when I already have to be to work at 6:30, going out of my way to stop here, having a whole discussion with multiple employees and for my orders to be comically wrong is frustrating. Another thing, I am in customer service, I give ALOT of grace, but an employee was showing a newer employee how to place an order for multiple items and was explaining how if someone’s choosing multiple bagels and they change their mind on a flavor that they have to go back and start all over and it’s so frustrating and that sometimes after a rush when customers aren’t around, they just want to kill themselves. Like what? This is happening at the register not even...

Not a great first impression. I pass Brothers Bagel frequently and have been watching the renovation, waiting for a good, non-chain, bagel shop to open up. I went on opening weekend, waited in line with my hungry toddler for half an hour (still not making it inside) and had to leave because they ran out of food. Understandable.

I tried again on a Thursday morning when the line wasn’t out the door. I still waited for 35 minutes to place my order. I ordered a BEC on everything bagel. They asked me if ketchup and fried egg were ok. I said yes and asked for the egg to be over hard (not runny at all). The egg was soft, they forgot ketchup and the everything bagel was SO tough to bite into. It was also way too salty.

I bought a sandwich and 6 bagels which totaled $31. They didn’t ask if I needed cream cheese so I honestly forgot to order it or it would’ve been more like $40.

The bagels I brought home were also very tough. The inside is soft but the outside is hard to break into and exhausting to chew. I wasn’t even able to give one to my toddler because it’s too hard for her.

I might try it again but going to give them a few months to incorporate feedback. Right now, sadly, it’s just not worth the...