Bagel Cafe — Restaurant in Herndon

If I was rating this solely on food, this would be very different. The food was good as noted by others below, but I do NOT like the way they do business and consider them unethical and actively dishonest.

First their online ordering app kept declining my payment until I put in a tip. I tried 2 different cards which I use all the time, and the message just said “payment declined” which did not make sense to me. Miraculously when I entered a tip in the supposedly optional tip field, it went through immediately using the exact same card. Not cool. So not only did it force me to enter a tip, but the message lied about why the earlier attempts did not go through.

If I sit in a restaurant and someone comes to my table repeatedly to assist me, that deserves a tip if the service is friendly. If I show up at a register and all someone has to do is hand me a bag - that is what the restaurant pays them to do and should not be on me. Shame on them for the practice and the dishonesty about the practice. Food is already incredibly expensive these days, and I don’t like any business that tries to charge me more just because they can.

The app also lied about the ready time. I placed the order at 11:25 am and it said it would be ready at 11:30 which seemed odd for a Saturday. If you read the fine print it says in busy times the wait may be 30-45 minutes longer than time quoted. Really? A few minutes I could understand, but 30-45? I guess I should consider myself lucky that our wait was “only” 25 minutes after we arrived. We will not be...

Stopped by the Bagel Shop in downtown Herndon on Nov’ 23.

I had the Ham and Cheese on Everything Bagel. Sat outside and enjoyed it. Taste was very good, everything bagel had large salt which was just perfect.

The bagel sandwich as a whole, it can be viewed as a treatise to an ideal breakfast incorporating bagel, cheese, and ham. That is, a near-perfect combination of protein and healthiness for a first meal of the day.

I enjoyed it and ate it slowly and languorously. Savored each bite. Actually tasted the meat (ham or turkey, both are good!), and the bagel, and the salt and seasoning, and even the cheese.

This is how an ideal bagel sandwich is meant to be eaten / enjoyed! Savor each bite as if it were the last. This is what makes it worthy to pay out of pocket for a breakfast, especially one you could have easily cooked up yourself!

Also I purchased a 6-pack of bagels (everything, have to try other flavors) as well as some cream cheese spreads (chocolate chip and cinnamon something). Liked the CC spread but it’s a bit too sweet / sugary for me. Still great tasting. Not sure of the nutritional content of the bagels, but the everything bagel is pretty spot on. I usually don’t like everything bagels, so when a shop does it right and you start liking everything bagel, that’s when you know they onto something.

Overall, awesome breakfast spot in downtown Herndon. I live relatively close by, so I’ll likely be back again. Looking...

Growing up in Northern New Jersey, I was accustomed to good bagel shops and diners. To my dismay, when I moved out of state, I was disappointed.

Bagel cafe brings me back to my youth. The bagels are large and delicious. I got their ham and cheese omelet which was excellent.

On the side were delicious home fries. Every other place in Northern Virginia that has "home fries" serves up these hard, dried out potato chunks with no spices or vegetables. Bagel Cafe serves the real deal. The potatoes are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. They are accompanied by grilled onions that are still a bit crunchy. Their potatoes come with a pizazz of spices I could not identify but were excellent.

My non-expert palate detected lots of butter which, of course, provided much flavor but everything had a buttery glaze that others might not prefer.

Their latte was superb, coming from a professional machine.

Staff was highly attentive and helpful.

Decor was typical deli or diner style. Nothing fancy. The music was good and at a reasonable volume so people could talk.

The place was packed at 11am showing how popular it is. The 4.4 stars is undeservedly low, IMHO. Should be 4.6 to 4.8 at least. As for bagel restaurants in NoVA, this is a 5.

I just tried their corned beef on a bagel with tomato and mustard. It was very good. The corned beef was still juicy and tender. Cole slaw was also excellent.

I really have no suggestions for...