BO's Bagels — Restaurant in New York

I paid $7 for a small coffee and basic bagel which wasn't worth the $7 and got the bonus of a heavy dosage of abuse and gaslighting by an off the rails staff.

Ordered a simple toasted everything with cream cheese at about noon today, my standard bagel order dating back years. Receive my order in five minutes and it's not toasted. No biggie. I'm not angry, I just want it toasted. I bring back my order and state "I wanted it toasted can you toast this." I didn't want a confrontation over a bagel so I didn't blame the staff.

In response, rather than simply correcting the order, the counterperson did want a confrontation: "I know you didn't order it that way." In fact, that's exactly how I ordered it. The same way I order every bagel dating back 30 years. (Check the tape, manager.) At that point the entire staff's demeanor changed hostile, just as hostile as the employee that was now gaslighting me. Suddenly, the worst crime in the word is a purported mistaken bagel order that was never mistaken.

As you can imagine, it was all fun and games for them after that. After taking my untoasted bagel back, they killed my re-order. Another 10 minute delay. No customer remains in the shop. I again made my re-re-request for my toasted bagel to a different counter person. At that point they finally COMMENCE toasting the toasted bagel I ordered 20 minutes prior. Total: 25 minutes, $7, and wanton hostility for a toasted bagel in a mostly barren store with a staff gaslighting you. I cannot imagine what happens to...

The bagels we got were dry. More like a loaf of bread than a bagel. The service was slow, and they said they were out of egg bagels, even though we placed the order online and were specifically able to order egg bagels online. Then, while waiting for our order in the store (we ordered in advance and it was not until ready when we arrived), we saw that there was a whole basket of egg bagels on display. Not sure why they told us they were out of egg bagels when they had so many. Seemed like a miscommunication between the person who worked on the order and the person who makes the bagels? I did not say anything to the worker because I did not want to be rude, and I don’t believe it was their fault. I think it was just a generally disorganized store.

Later, my friends actually had one of the egg bagels and I was told that they were not good. They were also dry, just like my poppy bagel (which I had to get because they pretended to be out of egg bagels).

Another thing: the website for ordering lies about the hot sauce they have. They have Cholula, not “everything hot sauce”. Which is fine, but because of this minor discrepancy, it took them over 30 min to make our order, because they didn’t want to start making it until we arrived and told them the Cholula was fine. They said they called to ask us but we had no service because we were in the subway.

Overall a weird experience. I will...

Don't order online! I ordered online and they said it wouldn't be ready for thirty minutes. I get there 9 minutes early and there's no sign of my order, so I wait. After 32 minutes have passed since I ordered, I walk up to the counter to ask where it is. Guess what they said! They didn't make it yet. I "should have told them when I first walked in that I was here so they could make it for me". (But everywhere else in NYC, you don't ask for your order when you arrive early and don't see it waiting yet on the counter, because you know they're busy, they'll get to it, and you know better than to be annoying). The reasoning they gave was because it had smoked salmon in it, they didn't want it sitting waiting for me and wanted to make it fresh when I arrived so I "didn't get sick". (No mention of this policy in my email order confirmation, though). So then after waiting ten minutes (actually 32 since ordering), I had to wait another ten until I got my kids' food. The woman at the counter was friendly with others and knew her regulars. The place was packed and very loud, I couldn't hear a thing. Food was fine, but definitely not the best bagel I've had in NYC, it flattened out in my hand. If you don't make food for pickup the way every other place in NYC does, where you walk in and pick it up, then don't let people order online. It likely would have been faster to just walk...