Water Street Bagel Co. — Restaurant in City of Syracuse

I'm conflicted as I write this. Syracuse has been missing a go-to bagel shop for YEARS. I grew up in NJ, and going to the local deli/bagel shop at all hours of the day and getting a pork roll, or sausage egg and cheese on an everything bagel is almost taken for granted. So I had such high hopes for Water Street Bagels.

My first experience with Water Street bagel came this morning. The staff were VERY disorganized. I stood in line for about three-four minutes with one other person in front of me and we were both shocked that no one asked us what we wanted/took our order. Finally, one of the staff members constructing bagels told us to move down and the woman working the cash register would take our order. Not good. It should be the other way around. He should be taking orders and then telling the woman working the register what each person got in order to ring them up.

So I finally got to order an everything bagel with bacon, egg, and cheese, to go. I waited THIRTEEN minutes to get it. That's really inexcusable. There was a steady stream of people coming in and out, but nothing that should have caused them to take that long to get it made. I spoke to the owner about it, she was very apologetic and offered that it's only the first week and they're working the kinks out. That's fair. But it needs to be addressed. Perhaps purchasing an additional rotating toaster machine would be a good start. I only saw one and it wasn't in constant use, staff were primarily toasting bagels in a small home kitchen pop-up toaster. Come on. To put all the work and money into crafting a wood-fire bagel shop and then to be using pop-up kitchen toasters for the bagels is like buying a luxury car that never leaves the garage because the owner is concerned it'll get scratched.

On to the sandwich itself. The bagel was certainly the best part and I will come back for the bagels. Perhaps getting a 1/2 dozen to go with some cream cheese on the side is a good idea. The egg was fried on the grill, which is certainly appreciated. No Dunkin' Donuts egg patties here, it's the real deal. There wasn't enough bacon, only two small strips. The problem with the sandwich was the amount of cheese. Holy hell it made the sandwich a mess. Perhaps turning the grill down so the hot eggs don't make the bagel a cheesy dripping mess would be good. Overall, it was an extremely average bacon egg and cheese sandwich. Not flavorful, but certainly better than Dunkin'. Not worth the almost $6 charged.

The ambience of the place is certainly impressive and will draw rave reviews for that alone. It is well deserved. I LOVE the brick oven and the work that has been put into getting this place going.

However, until the service is worked out and the grill line/breakfast sandwiches are tweaked a little bit, I cannot give this place more than an...

I really wanted to love this place. I enjoy supporting local businesses, I love bagels, I love wood fire grilled and toasted things. I was SO ready.

And then I was disappointed.

The Good- The atmosphere is great. The staff was polite, fun, and efficient. The service was fast and simple. The building was beautiful inside, the wood floors and accents are great. The eggs on my sandwich were cooked perfectly. They were cooked mostly through, I would call it just past over medium with the yolk broken.

The Middle Ground- It was dark. Not terrible, but the lighting definitely needs some help. Might be the atmosphere they're going for but I felt like it was hard to really see much of anything in there. The pricing is not awesome. I paid almost $15, after an 18% tip that I felt obligated to leave because the girl flipped the screen toward me to select a tip, for 2 plain bagels tossed into a bag and 1 bagel sandwich. That's just a bit much considering bagels are under $1 for singles at any grocery store around and not much more than that at most bagel places.

The Bad- The bagels were mediocre, at best. We had plain onion bagels that we toasted at home and ate with cream cheese, and I had a bagel sandwich with egg, cheese, and bacon. There was nothing special about the bagels, and in fact, they were not nearly as good as Bruegger's and Price Chopper. It's not saying much for a bagel specific restaurant when a chain grocery store puts out a better product. They only have American cheese, which of course, is not even really cheese. It detracted from the quality of the sandwich significantly because it's such a cheap addition. The addition of cheddar or swiss or SOMETHING other than the no option option of American slices would at least elevate the sandwich to slightly above mediocre. The bacon was rather crisp and kept crumbling and falling off the sandwich. Not a huge deal, but it should've been taken off the flat top about a minute before it was so that it could hold its' shape and not crumble all over the place.

But really, I just keep going back to the bagels. There wasn't a lot of flavor at all. They were textured decently, but Price Chopper's are softer when fresh. They didn't taste BAD, but when I order a Parmesan bagel, I want to taste Parmesan in each bite, not just when I happen to directly press my tongue against the very top middle of the bagel.

Overall, I am disappointed, as I said. I wanted to love this place and I don't think we'll go back. The overreaching pricing necessary to keep a small local business afloat is just not in line with the quality of the...

I'm a regular breakfast customer at Bruegger's Bagelry, so this review is in comparison to that establishment. I had the classic breakfast bagel sandwich selecting sausage as the meat. The sausage was tasty and substantial, and had a slight edge over that served by Bruegger's, but the salt bagel was less flavorful. The sandwich came with two eggs which, for about the same price, is an add-on at Bruegger's. Overall, it's just about a draw. However, in other ways the Water Street Bagel fell short. The decaf coffee was weak and almost undrinkable. I know Recess Coffee, which they serve, has a good reputation, so maybe the person who prepared the carafe my coffee was poured from made a mistake. I had no interest in finding out whether coffee refills were free, but I would point out the excellent cup of coffee that you receive at Bruegger's can be refilled for free. My wife ordered an onion bagel with horseradish cream cheese and a side of sausage and sides of strip and circular bacon. She offered me samples of her selections. The onion bagel was excellent but the horseradish flavor in the cream cheese was almost undetectable. I did not care for the locally-sourced circular bacon, but the strip bacon was fine. Finally, I did not appreciate the options offered for tipping when I paid for the food using a charge card. The first amount offered was 18% followed by higher options. I would suggest that for counter ordering where most patrons cleared their tables when they were finished, the options of 10% and 15% should be added. I appreciate the fact that at Bruegger's...