Walnut Street Bagels & Co. — Restaurant in Montclair

I went this past Saturday, as I hadn't been here in three weeks. My reason was I could tell the person up front was new and wanted to give her time to improve. This past Saturday was painful. It was Saturday at 8:09 (saw the time on my phone). One person ahead of me, and they were handed their bag by the time I stepped inside. A food delivery person came in right behind me. The girl didn't even acknowledge me, and the delivery person told them the name and she handed them the bag. She then looks at me and says, one moment. Looks at the cart, which had nothing on it. Then goes to the table where there were two small bags, one was already stapled and ready to go. She looks at me again and says one moment. She then proceeds to very neatly crease the bag, fold it, staple it, straighten it. By that point another delivery person comes in and she completely ignores me and they ask for their order. Finally, she takes her pad and asks me what I want. All I wanted was 2 bagels, and the smallest container you have of vegetable cream cheese. She then gets a bag, and I had to tell her again what 2 bagels I wanted. Next she reconfirms the size container and the person working in back fills it up. In the meantime I pay. I tell her it's cash. The order was $5.10. I gave her $10.10. I noticed it was taking her longer than usual to give me my change. She walked away from the register and looked at the bags on the table. I told her I gave her $10.10 and I get $5.00 back. She then goes to the register and gives me my change. The person in back drops my cream cheese in my bag to complete my order. She goes to neatly fold the bag and hand to me. I told her thank you very much, no response. Not even a sorry you had to wait. Leaving the store I looked at my watch and it was now 8:25! No one else had come into the store. I am not sure if she was trained to take care of delivery orders before people who actually come inside, but something is not right. It wasn't like she was overwhelmed with orders and/or people. When I was her age, I worked at deli's, snack bars at pools, and small restaurants and when it got busy it was hard. The baker you had when it switched was great. When you came into the store, if he recognized you he'd call out with a Hello, how are you, nice to see you. As she is the first person you see upon entering your store, it won't reflect well for your business. I do love your bagels, but I doubt I will go back...

TLDR: Burnt food, incorrect order, rude staff, and log wait times.

In detail: My visit was deeply unpleasant. The main staff member I dealt with was rude no matter how polite I tried to be. My very simple order (which involved only heating up food and adding cream cheese) took around 30 minutes to complete. They had initially tried to give me only half my order and the worker I told this to acted like giving me the second part of my order was a huge inconvenience. After finally receiving my order and returning home I realized that half the order was wrong and a majority of it was burnt. There seemed to be some sort of event going on that the majority of workers were focused on so I suspect they were too busy with other tasks and accidentally let the food burn. The one bagel that was both correct and not burnt was just okay, will never visit again.

The one bright spot was that one worker (I suspect a manager or owner) was very kind and apologetic about the wait time. However, compared to everything that went wrong on this visit, the long wait time is the least of...

We were really looking forward to this place. The Harvey was dry and greasy, the sugar cookie hard as a rock. The coffee was quite weak seemed watered down. The Philly roll was fine. The cashier was also dry. The gentleman making the bagels was quite nice. The atmosphere really needs a lot of care. There is an old dead fern in the corner gathering dust. The faux candle chandelier over your head has a trailing plastic fernlike plant also full of dust. There is a random broken metal cagelike candle sconce thing on the floor in a corner just hanging out. There are also lots of cake stands and tiers again very dusty. The shelves where the bagels are kept need a wipe down they are dirty. I expect there will be seeds on the floor from the bagels but the floor also looks dirty. This place leaves much to be desired. Its all...