Kismet Bagels Luncheonette - Penn Valley — Restaurant in Lower Merion Township

We were very excited to have a breakfast/bagel shop opening near us in Narberth! We have had a so-so experience so far. Food is middle of the road, employees are very friendly, value is not very good, and setup/ambiance is pretty good.

Food: Bagels are pretty mediocre (at least for the type of bagel my husband and I like) and are pretty similar to the bagels we buy at Acme and Whole Foods (though with a greater selection than you can find at the grocery store). They make a delicious zhug sauce and we are happy to be able to buy containers of this to bring home and use on food we make as well. Their cream cheese spreads are tasty and we often buy these to go with store-bought bagels. We primarily get two of their bagel sandwiches: The Spicy (has a bit too much cream cheese vs other ingredients for us) and The Egg (does not have enough zhug for us, even when we pay extra to have extra added to the sandwich).

Value: This is where Kismet does not do well. Their food is quite expensive and the quality is not there to justify the prices. Initially, I would have given them a higher rating from better value because they were reducing the sandwich cost when we had bacon removed from The Spicy. But recently, their setup on Toast Takeout has changed and we vegetarians are now subsidizing other people's meat consumption by paying for the bacon when it is removed from the sandwich, yet get charged a lot extra to substitute vegan egg (not sure if the bacon charge still gets removed in store or not... this experience was via Toast Takeout app but the line/wait is usually so ridiculous on the weekends that the only viable option is to order ahead on Toast). I was going to order The Spicy this morning without bacon and with vegan egg instead of regular egg and found that it would have been ~$15 with tax and tip, which is a ridiculous price for a meat-free bagel sandwich that isn't even that good.

Ambiance/Other: It is nice that there is a small diner-like seating area at the restaurant. It would be nice if they offered reusable plates for those choosing to dine in instead of generating a lot of paper and plastic waste irrespective of where a person intends to eat their food. Likewise, there is only a garbage can, so the paper bag that every order comes in cannot be recycled unless you take it home with you. My ambiance gripe is that it gets really noisy between the music, the talking, and the fact that the seating area is semi enclosed and all hard surfaces, so the sound really bounces around.

Overall, we do still occasionally stop by to support a local business but are tepid on Kismet, especially since they have shifted pricing to reinstate the meat subsidy on...

Let me start with a bit of my background. I work in high finance and have high household income. I have been to over thousands of high-end restaurants that cost $500-1000 for two people. So, I am not shy of spending top dollars to get the best food, services, and vibes.

That said, I also love to support local businesses and often spent extra with them.

I went to Kismet 2-3 times as the location was a Japanese restaurant that was closed during covid. I thought I would support this new business.

This morning, I went there and bought two smoke salmon bagels, a latte coffee, a snack, and a bottle of soda. Costed $38. See the attached picture of my receipt.

I know for a fact that they overpriced the smoke salmon at $13, compared to $10 at other places like Einstein bros. I thought, okay, I am gonna to support this business and pay extra for it.

The I got my latte, and it actually tasted like milk, and I can make better latte at home with my expresso machine. I asked the woman who seemed to be a manager, 5'9 short haired, tattooed 30 something white woman for an extra shot. She pulled up a credit card payment machine, and I was going to pay for the extra shot, which is like $1 at Starbucks. To my surprise, she wanted to charge me $3.7 for an expresso shot! I said to her that's too much for a $5 latte. Then she gave me an attitude that you shouldn't order 16 oz as there were only 2 shots. I said it didn't say anywhere, and Starbucks would put 4 shots i in there. She then said you could always ask in a demeaning , snippy, and poor attitude. Rather than apologizing, her attitude made the whole experience terrible. I said I won't get coffee from them, and she said it's fine. It seemed like she didn't give a s**t

Then I went home and ate my $13 smoke salmon. It was okay at best, and I got better ones at Einstein bro and Manhattan Bagels that cost like $10.

In my opionion, given the way overpriced food, terrible coffee, and so-so bagel quality , I won't come back to this place anymore. The management can really teach the staff better attitude and customer services to charge 30% more over competition.

Thanks for reading. This review is my own personal opinion based on my experience with this company. I am sharing my thoughts under the...

First of all, whenever I see a business responding to negative customer reviews explaining how they shouldn’t be posting negative reviews, I cringe. There are 5 stars to choose from for a reason. The whole point of a review system is for US the CONSUMER to let EACH OTHER know what is worth OUR time vs places that aren’t good or are just meh. After going into the Narberth location of Montgomery ave I am not surprised that the owner is the type to condescend and criticize customers giving THEIR review of the place. Staff was snippy and acted like I was asking a Michelin star chef to fully customize one of his signature dishes when I simply asked to throw an egg on their melt sandwich. I even offered to supply the egg just incase they were operating on tight stock for limited orders they had allotted. I was kind of taken aback by the rude response but ok fine. However then… when I got home and attempted to eat this “patty melt” it was dismal. I live two minutes down the street so it was still hot and fresh but the bread was completely soggy and gross. Beyond that the patty was completely bland. Tasteless. You ever have a big bbq when you were in college and poor and dared grab Walmarts cheap frozen burgers? That’s exactly what this was. The caramelized onions were not cooked properly and were also a tasteless sopping mess. Like I said, I live a couple minutes down the street so I decided to give them one more chance and go simple with a bagel and shmear. The bagel was just as bad and the veggie cream cheese actually gross. Kinda hard to make a nasty tasting veggie cream cheese. Their stuff looked pretty good in pictures and they aren’t doing anything crazy over there - we’re talking bagels and sandwiches…. But it’s not good at all. My guess is cutting corners with cheap ingredients but whatever it is, it’s not just not for me… it’s flat out bad. This is my honest review to my fellow taste...