Devine's Bagels & Café — Restaurant in Milford

The friendly signage, bright colors, and "Bagel Bar Recipe" bagels inside are about the only nice points I found here. The staff just kills this.

The counter staff are friendly enough but clearly suffer from a lack of training and common sense. We ordered our two bagels but had to wait while the two patrons BEHIND us got their orders first and walked out, before the staff asked us what part of our order was again. They did not even start my order when I gave it to them and moved on to someone else instead. Communication was almost nil between counter staff. They could not seem to figure out which bagel belonged to which patron, despite there being a maximum of 5 people, one of which already sat eating. The staff continually referenced their own menu board for topping offerings as well, a very unprofessional tendency.

I was also overcharged by $6 for my order, when counter staff tried to ring me up and added another person's order to mine, despite the fact that they had not even completed my order preparation yet. We even verbally told them what was ordered as they entered it into the computer wrong. The mistake was not realized until they finally began work on my 2nd of two bagels, and asked about cashing us out AGAIN. I did receive the necessary refund, but it is unacceptable. You should not be billing a customer without understanding the products and services they have ordered in the first place.

Management is also, by far, lacking in almost every sense of the word. The individual manager yelled at and threw insults towards his own staff right in front of the customers no less than 5 times during the 10 minutes I spent waiting for food inside. At one point, with 3 customers in line and both his counter staff occupied ringing out customers up front, the best the manager could do was yell at his staff about there being customers waiting, before grabbing a coffee and walking into the back. In another instance, he deigned to yell at one of his staff, who was busy serving me, to take care of a growing spill at the coffee maker. Why the MANAGER cannot take care of this himself while customers are taken care off by staff, is beyond me.

I've been working in customer service for over 6 years, 3 of them spent as a line supervisor. You DO NOT yell at your team members in front of customers, you DO NOT insult them in front of customers, and you DO NOT ignore customers and treat your workers like slaves when they are clearly overwhelmed, while you yourself are unwilling to step in and help. The manager clearly lacks formal managerial training, and I doubt he has even read one book on the subject. The entire staff, management and clerks, suffer from a lack of training, and a disregard for basic service standards.

I will certainly not be returning to this establishment. It is a crying shame for all involved that the most basic element, its people, are...

Food: 7/10 Atmosphere: 8/10 Service: 2/10 Overall: 5/10

Food: While the food was good, and the ham egg and cheese on a plain bagel i ordered was correct and quite scrumptious, I don’t think the quality was as good as JBC Bagels in Trumbull or Bagel King in Bridgeport. But for the price i think it’s a good deal

Atmosphere: When we first arrived there was outdoor seating with a small band playing to the patrons which me and my fiancée thought was odd but made it seem quite homey. When we walked in, the place was clean and it smelled like delicious food which made the visit more enjoyable. It’s what you would expect from a breakfast bagel place (minus the band haha)

Service: Why the number is so low was because from the moment we stepped in we felt like the older lady taking orders was in a terrible mood and couldn’t shake it off to be decent to anybody else. I heard her ask “can i help you” while me and my fiancée were still looking at the menu but she didn’t try to make eye contact with us when asking so i just shrugged it off thinking she wasn’t speaking to us. When giving our orders she was giving off a rude tone with no smiling or enthusiasm in her voice and when we paid the older lady working the register was also quite rude for the 25 seconds we interacted and when we were waiting for our food me and my fiancée were looking at each other like “bro did WE do something?? why are they acting like this?” we were genuinely shocked because it seemed like they must have had like the worst possible customer come in before us and ruin all of their days and now WE had to take the brunt of it. When our food was ready, the first older lady put it on the counter where you pay and walked past two younger girls while saying something to them and due to everything that happened prior I couldn’t help but assume it was something rude towards us. The whole thing was so surreal and the service alone is why i would never come back and praise others for avoiding this...

I've REALLY enjoyed the food at Devine's. Bagels are really delicious and chewy - toasted and hot. But PHEW! "Prices subject to change" - that should have been my first warning.

I had a bagel with lox cream cheese and jalapeno cream cheese. And an iced coffee. This came out to just over $14 but when she rang me out, I distinctly remember her saying that it came out to $13 and change, but I'm being charged over $14. I looked at the receipt and I only see one item listed as an "express item x1" for the $14 amount.

I asked for an itemized bill so that I can understand - and was told that they don't give out itemized bills. If this was for a business trip, people need itemized bills when submitting expenses. This is a wildly suspicious business practice. So I had to very awkwardly ask verbally how much each item cost - $8+ for the bagel and almost $5 for the coffee. The pricing on the menu showed it should be more around $6 - which makes sense because comparatively, a bagel sandwich with pastrami, eggs, and hashbrowns is $6+. And a lox sandwich with full fish slices is around $9. There was barely any lox in the cream cheese. I don't know...

I left it there because the woman I was asking looked like she was about to snap at me and given how people have been acting post-covid lately, I just didn't want to bother or risk it. I felt very nervous asking... though as a customer, shouldn't it be okay to ask, given all of the above? Honestly, it's made me afraid to come back.

Damn it... they have such good bagels though! Makes...