Bagels ‘n Grinds — Restaurant in College Park

Poor quality breakfast sandwich, poor quality food.

I ordered a breakfast sandwich on a bagel. I asked if I could get the egg fried and all three young women gave me a blank look.

“How is the egg cooked?” I asked

“Scrambled and then in the microwave.”

I should’ve left then.

Unfortunately, I’d already swiped the card. Plus I’m not one to send back food.

Received the sandwich, no “have a great day” or enjoy your sandwich” but they didn’t even say hello when I walked up to the counter in the first place so I didn’t expect much. Still I said thank you because— well you know I had parents.

Opened up the thing— pretty standard operation here bagel was hot, eggs were radiated, melted cheese, but the sausage was off. Clearly it was a sausage patty at some point idk why they chopped it into bits like sliced steak. It made eating this thing that much worse.

Taste was edible. Got through half the sandwich when I bite down and thought I’d chipped a tooth. I might invoice a dentist bill because I think I destroyed a filling or two.

When I found between the fibers of this massacred sausage meat was what is either a bone that wasn’t ground into the meat well enough or an infants tooth. I narrowed it down to those two.

Clearly poor quality meat supply here to match the customer service.

Bagel itself wasn’t bad though. Ambiance of the restaurant lounge area pretty nice. The sausage bone/rat tooth very strong 9/10.

Oh and this POS breakfast sandwich...

I decided to visit for lunch and was underwhelmed at the customer experience. First you're funneled down a hallway away from the natural lighting the rest of the restaurant. This is when entering from the Hotel or coming from the patio. Second you will be greeted with a standing sign that says "wait until you're called upon" when you're a foot from the register which will be to your left. Overall this is a very odd layout. The food selection is limited salad, soup, or bagel/bagel sandwich. The bagels were dense and didn't meet an expectation of what a bagel should be and as a chicken sandwich it was soppy. The chicken was low quality and more engineered than fresh. The seating has a mix of table, couches, and counter space. These were probably the only redeeming quality of the space. The WiFi is secured with a password, but not clearly posted where people sit so you'll have to ask. Quite frankly, there are better food choices and atmospheres near The Hotel and College Park. I don't plan on returning to enjoy sub-par food at a price that is higher than...

An off-putting experience on a first visit, despite a lovely space and convenient access from UMD-College Park.

Unfortunately, the hot bagel sandwich (California chicken) was overcooked to the degree that the bagel was almost inedibly hard. On top of that, as best as I could tell, the plain bagel wasn't a very good bagel in the first place (despite the "bagels" part of the name). Finally, the sandwich filling was minimal, with no topping, nothing on the side. At a premium pricing over other sandwich shops as well as old-school bagel joints...I'm not inclined to try the food again.

Now, the space, that's worth writing about. Long expanses of window letting in natural light, a wide bar with power outlets, lots of tables, some comfy chairs and a fireplace... This would be a great place to linger, to work.

I'll give their coffee a try and re-assess; hopefully they do better with the second half of their name than...