Jeff's Bagel Run — Restaurant in Houston

Used their app, which seemed okay. Ordered for a certain time this morning and order was ready when we arrived. Parking was nonexistent so used the neighboring CVS. As a former NYer I was looking forward….

We ordered a six pack variety, plus three different cups of cream cheese, a tub of cream cheese, and an order of lox. Bagels were ordered sliced, which turned out to be a mistake because slices are far off center. Not a big deal but still…pretty damn simple to properly slice a bagel. Bagels themselves were soft and chewy, but crust was soft too, which was disappointing. Salt bagels had barely any salt, also disappointing. Cream cheeses were obviously fresh mixed, and decent although there is NOTHING “roasted” about the roasted jalapeño cream cheese. The staff made a mistake with the order, giving me a single serve of cheese instead of the tub I paid for, which necessitated a walk back into the store, past the line of cars and awkwardly placed indoor customers to find someone to correct this. Forgot to mention, when I initially walked in I stood near the Pickup spot because I had paid through the app. Staff member nearby did a reasonably good job of ignoring me while she shoved bagels through their apparently miscalibrated slicer, which sits right next to the Pickup area…I finally had to lean over and ask if I could pickup an online order and she just said “uhhhhhhh”. LOL. Pretty clear that staff training and overall quality control need loads of work here.

Lox order was very good, and 4.4oz on my scale at home (order is 4.0oz). Probably the best part of the entire order, truth be told, albeit a bit expensive at $6.

As others have said, they have no toaster. There was no appreciable crust on any of our bagels. Staff training (or perhaps hiring practices) that appears to have fallen short told me that this store is like so many other places around Houston trying to be something it cannot be…in this case, a store serving genuine NY style bagels (their words). Better than grocery store Lender’s but not by much, and that’s a low bar. I paid $38 for our order including a 15% tip I wish I could take back; prices are probably 10-20% higher than they should be. We probably won’t be going back unless there’s some evidence they’ve gotten things closer to what they advertise, and service to match.

Also of note for those that use these reviews as a basis for deciding whether or not to visit a local business: I work in quality management and when looking at reviews one thing matters most to me…how businesses respond to negative feedback posted online. Not just how they bring this feedback back into the business and incorporate needed change (something I’d only know if I revisited), but how they respond to the Google reviews themselves. You’ll typically find one of four approaches - ignore negative feedback and only reply to glowing reviews (bad), reply with a defensive position (bad), reply to each review with a copy/paste sentence or two (bad), or posting a reply that suggests management or owners truly value said feedback even if it paints their hard work in a poor light (strong, good). You might want to scroll through these reviews and decide for yourself how much this business cares about real, albeit...

I stopped by Jeff’s Bagel Run in Clear Lake City today for the first time, and I have to say I was blown away! Since I had never been here before, I wasn’t sure how to order, but the Hispanic lady at the counter was incredibly kind and helpful. She took the time to explain everything to me and even shared the story of how Jeff started this business from his own kitchen during Covid—just trying to get his wife a really good bagel when everything was closed. Hearing that made the experience even more special.

I decided to try the “Lox in a Box,” and wow—it was amazing! The portion was very generous: 4 ounces of salmon plus two sides of cream cheese, capers, cucumbers, onions, and tomatoes—all for under $12. That’s such a steal, considering 4 ounces of salmon alone costs about the same at my local grocery store. I paired it with a plain bagel, and it was perfect.

I also grabbed the bagel of the day—blueberry cinnamon sugar—for my daughter, and she loved it.

Overall, I not only enjoyed a delicious lunch, but I also left with a better understanding of Jeff’s story and why this place is so special. I’m really glad Jeff’s Bagel Run is now in the neighborhood, and I’ll...

Very disappointed. Went inside and was overwhelmed but happy to see so many different options. When we began talking to the lady taking the order she clearly seemed like she did NOT want to be there. We ordered 3 bagels and 3 cream cheeses. It took 5 minutes for her to input out 3 items into the system and somehow managed to overcharge for extra cream cheeses. She literally read us our order over 2x and still added an extras that we did not ask for. Being new I was unaware that some were cold. Very disappointed that none of the staff told us about this and we got cold bagels that were very chewy in the inside.

Coffee: Back to the lady that was taking my order…. I ordered an iced caramel latte and asked if they have different milk options. She proceeds to look at me funny and say it’s already skinny…. I say ok… do you have different milks? She repeated its already skinny with skim milk. She made me feel very uncomfortable and unwelcome. I just left it at that and said okay.

To say the least it might have just been the interactions with this lady from the beginning but either way she made me not want to come back again since this was a first...