Alex's Bagel Shop — Restaurant in Longmeadow

We stopped in this Sunday afternoon to get bagels as this place has been recommended to us. We were on our way to an event and figured this would be a quick stop. It took quite a few minutes for someone to approach us to take our order as two of the workers were gossiping at the back of the store while one girl was taking customers. I've worked for nearly a decade in the food service industry so I am generally a very understanding customer. The person taking our order didn’t approach us with any kind of customer service skill, just asked if we were ready or not, didn’t write anything down and had to ask us at every step of the assembly what we wanted on our bagels (what cream cheese, what meat, what toppings). We had both ordered sandwiches with different bread and toppings. It took quite literally 20 minutes for two breakfast sandwiches to be prepared- potentially because she was working one glove on, the un gloved hand was touching her face and hair while she worked. One of the sandwiches was supposed to have pastrami on it, but the employee opened the container, proceeded to poke at and sniff the meat and then turned to us and stated that she thought it had gone bad. (Confused because the meat was being kept in a little plastic take out container?) We opted to go with the roast beef, which also tasted spoiled. They accommodated us and replaced our sandwich with a breakfast sandwich. It’s unfortunate because after all of that we had still paid for a sandwich that was almost twice the price of a bacon egg and cheese (what we ended up with). We also ordered a pastry and two iced coffees. I had to remind her 2-3 times that we had ordered the pastry. Both coffees had over an inch of room at the top which we requested be topped off. On our way out the door we realized there were coffee grinds in both of our iced coffees. Truly just an unfortunate $30 experience. Even with good customer service the food was...

Living locally, Alex’s Bagel shop is convenient and, for a number of years I purchased a bagel and cream cheese several times a week at both his former and new shops. I also often picked up bagels on weekends for my local daughter and her family and would buy a dozen bagels and a container of Alex’s cream cheese to take when visiting my other daughter who had moved to a Connecticut shoreline community. I have never particularly enjoyed going to the new shop because the counter staff are unfriendly almost to the point of being sullen.

But, about a year ago, something happened. I don’t know if perhaps the overhead of operating the new shop became too much, but the cream cheese spread on bagels became skimpy and the bagels were often stale. I stopped going.

Today I decided to give Alex’s another try. I ordered an “everything” bagel. It had no flavor and had a cake-like consistency. The “everything” mix on one side was nearly non-existent. It had no garlic flakes, and I could have counted the number of poppy and sesame seeds it was so skimpy. The other bagel half had a little more of the “everything” mix but only a few pieces of garlic. I paid $2.20 for a bagel without cream cheese since I had some at home. At that price, I wonder if a dozen bagels costs $26.40? I will not return and I do not recommend the bagels.

Being from Longmeadow, I know that Alex began by working at Kimmel’s Bagels (fantastic bagels), that he learned on the job, worked hard, and eventually bought the business when the Kimmels sold it upon retirement. It appeared that Alex had a bright future that I wanted to support, so i’m really sad writing a...

My husband and I live in Western MA and every once in awhile we venture into nearby towns for breakfast or lunch...this morning it was Alex's Bagel Shop in Longmeadow. Now, we've been around long enough to know that this is family owned and there's no doubt they work very hard. But that being said, who in their right mind charges $5.00 for a toasted bagel with a tiny spread of cream cheese? The cream cheese was almost non-existent. It cost us $13.00 plus change to buy two toasted bagels with cream cheese and one small black coffee. Youch. Very expensive. Now I wouldn't mind paying that or close to that if it were good. Unfortunately we didn't like any of it. The bagels, the cream cheese or the coffee. We both had stomach aches all day. It felt like food poisoning. We had stomach cramps for a good part of the whole day. Again, we know it's family owned so we're sorry but we are reporting the truth. Why is it so expensive? (Not to mention bad tasting) We will not go...