The Southern Bagel & Provision — Restaurant in Fredericksburg

[edit: tl;dr added a star - reason below]

The food was fresh and pretty good...but that's about the best I can say that is positive. The first red flag was my receipt wasn't itemized with a quick second, BIG, red flag being a weird 0.55 charge called "Surcharge Fee" that I wasn't informed of ahead of time. My assumption is a credit card fee, which is asinine to pass on. It's the cost of doing business. I can't think of a single fast/quick service place that passes that on that isn't a tiny mom & pop rural type place. But even if you do, INFORM YOUR CUSTOMERS YOU ARE DOING SO, so they can decide if they might want to pay cash instead. Third, and final, red flag was the fact that the menu said my chicken sandwich would be $13 but, after asking for one, my itemized receipt showed $14 with no explanation. I assume that it was for the cheese but the menu did NOT say it would cost more. it was just listed as one of the options ("homestyle").

Let's visit cost for a moment, as it's pretty important to many people in the current economy. $13 (let alone $14?!?) dollars for a chicken sandwich that was "ok" or "pretty good"? No...just no. I can get a Popeye's or Chick-fil-A sandwich for half that and Popeye's would be better with CfA being about the same quality (maybe slightly less). I would love to try the pastrami...but $22 for a pastrami sandwich is unheard of outside of a NY/Chicago deli (see edit below!). But you're going to be eating butcher quality, piled high pastrami. This is just good quality Block & Barrel, probably Sysco delivered, pastrami. I'm not saying it won't be good, but you have to decide if that is worth $22 (if they don't charge you more for some unknown reason). The food is going to be pretty good, hence the 3 stars, but the pricing needs to be adjusted to more reasonable levels.

Lastly, with no one in line when I ordered and only two orders in front of me, my chicken sandwich took 10 mins. While that isn't a terribly long time, it wasn't really explainable. Workers were literally milling around, one with her head on her arms (I'm not criticizing that...I'm all about comfort). The kitchen needs to learn how to multitask. I appreciate the hot, fresh, food and the fact that they cut my sandwich for me (would have been very difficult to eat if it wasn't). But hopefully they can learn to process orders more efficiently. It's going to lead to very long waits during even mildly busy times.

[edit: I was informed me that they had a special "Philly Cheese Steak [sic]" for $13. I enjoy a good cheesesteak, so I decided to give them another shot. Menu described it as "shaved beef, grilled peppers, and provolone". I can't eat onions, so was happy to see it didn't have any . There were at least 4-5 orders ahead of me, so I was really worried about the wait. Turns out they've learned how to multitask in the kitchen! my order, as well as 2 ahead of me (and ordered at the same time), were both done at the same time and in under 10 mins. This is a definite improvement and worth the additional star. However, the register staff REALLY need to be trained on informed customers of upcharges. Regardless if they are on the menu board or not. It's just a simple thing to inform your customers of additional charges and it would stop them from feeling "taken advantage of". I'm not the only review stating the same thing. Blatant signage, at the register - not hidden on a board with lots of other info. Luckily, I do believe that card processors are going to be making signage mandatory.

Lastly, and most important, it was a very good sandwich. Personally, I would have liked another slice of cheese but that's just nitpicking. The beef was probably pre-cooked, but that's ok. I got an everything bagel, so that may have helped with some of the flavor. The diced green peppers were really good. The provolone was melty and tasty - I just wanted a bit more. :)

Also - it appears they dropped the price of the Pastrami down from $22 to $16 - I will try...

Tl;dr: New bagel shop is delicious and goes above and beyond to fix a couple of missing items. Will definitely be back!

My husband and I went downtown to grab coffee and decided to try out the new bagel place in town! With all of the coffee shops, I'm happy we have a quick and savory breakfast option. We arrived about 15-20 min before opening and waited in our car. About 10 min prior to opening- a line was already forming. The interior is cute with a nice industrial/modern feel. They had a lot of bagel options behind the counter- savory, sweet, and plain. We ordered the Smoked Salmon Breakfast sandwich with an egg added on an everything bagel and a classic breakfast sandwich with American cheese with sage sausage added. My husband also ordered an Espresso Latte which he enjoyed. When we got our sandwiches, we noticed that the Smoked Salmon sandwich didn't have the egg. I went back to the counter with the sandwich just to have them add it on and they told me they would just remake the whole thing. We were definitely surprised but thankful. While waiting, I noticed that the classic sandwich was missing the cheese. My husband went up with the sandwich to either grab a small container of cream cheese (honestly, I would've been fine if they just handed him a slice of cheese haha) but the cheese is supposed to be wrapped in the egg I guess so they remade that one as well. Their system was just having an issue of sending all of the information from the POS to the line. I don't think I've ever eaten somewhere that has gone above and beyond to fix a couple of simple problems. Had we not already touched all over our first two sandwiches, we definitely would have given them away to some of our friends and family. We will definitely be back as often as we can before we move! Grab a coffee and bagel and enjoy downtown...

My husband and I went here with our 9 month old son for the first time yesterday. There were maybe two tables with two people in there when we arrived. We walked right up to order and the woman taking the order was very friendly. After we ordered a rush of about 5 customers came in after us. We noticed that everyone else that came in after us was receiving their orders. We assumed it was because we ordered bagel sandwiches. Our son starts to get restless so we are walking around the shop waiting for our food. After nearly 30 minutes of waiting we go up to the register and ask about our food. Apparently the kitchen never got the ticket with our food order. The workers apologized and said they just assumed we were standing there to entertain our son. I guess my husband and I could have asked sooner however the workers in the shop didn’t take any initiative to ask us if we needed anything or to follow up about our food. Instead they were on their cellphones and talking to one another. The shop was slow enough where I would have noticed a customer didn’t get their food. Again my husband and I take responsibility for not speaking up sooner, however we tried to go to this place a few days prior and the wait time was 40 min so we left. We just assumed this was the average time it took. Aside from this miscommunication this place is extremely over priced. I got a blt bagel with a can coke and my husband got an Italian sandwich with a can Dr Pepper and it was $35. The bagels are good but definitely not with the price or the wait time. I would have to really be craving a bagel to go out of my way to go here again. I would only give this place one star if it wasn’t for the quality...