Tal Bagels — Restaurant in New York

I don't want to start this review off on a bad start but I must. DON'T COME HERE! THEY OVERCHARGE YOU & FOOD IS POOR QUALITY. Yes, I'm yelling. Trust me, I'm doing you a favor.

I stepped into this location as I was in the neighborhood and thinking it was affiliated with the Tal Bagels on the UES, figured can't go wrong with bagels.

Here's my experience from this afternoon:

There are posters throughout the store advertising a bagel sandwich called The Tal Special which is advertised as a Fresh, Hand Slice Nova with Cream Cheese on a bagel. The bagel sandwich also has capers and onions. (Trust me this information will be useful later.)

Now when I ordered I said I wanted Nova on a bagel but no cream cheese. (I at no point said I wanted the Tal Special) Then the person I was with wanted the same, so I asked for a total of two Nova Bagel Sandwiches, both no cream cheese. While these started as two Nova plain bagel sandwiches, I then opted to add tomatoes and capers to both. By the way, was asked if I wanted the bagels toasted and I said yes, please.

Do you want to know what the price of these two bagel sandwiches were... $37.00 You read this right, THIRTY SEVEN DOLLARS. $18.50 each Nova Bagel Sandwich.

Now here's the problem. The price of a Nova Bagel Sandwich is $14.99. If you want to add capers, tomatoes, lettuce, and/or onions each item is .50 cents extra each. The Tal Special bagel sandwich costs $16.99 which includes onions capers and cream cheese. In addition to this they charge you tax.

Now my question is why, when I ordered the Nova Bagel Sandwich, did I get charged $16.99 + tax? The total of my sandwich should have been $15.99 + tax. The man who made my sandwich said, Nova, Tomatoes, and capers and the person at the register, another man, charged me $1 more.

Now you might be saying oh it's just $2 more overall. It probably may have not mattered if at least the sandwich was good but it wasn't. The bagels were not toasted, they were stale as heck, like a chancla, and chewy. Honestly, I threw away the a majority of the bagel.

When I went in to ask to get clarification on the pricing no one wanted to give me a clear answer, the guy who made the bagel sandwiches came and basically said the price of each was $15.99 due to the $14.99 for the Nova + tomatoes + capers. The lady who works there and works the register, although not when I was charged, well she doesn't want to be bothered so she just walked away. When I asked finally one of the Hispanic workers there for understanding of the pricing, he basically said they charge you the higher price of the sandwich regardless of whether you get cream cheese or not. If there were any issues, to talk to the lady. Ha! She doesn't care. As someone on Yelp wrote, they'd probably berate you.

I am NEVER going to come in here again. Do yourself a favor and don't give your business to...

Best bagels on the UWS. I see people here complaining about prices and wait times. Most of the time I don't get my bagels with anything on them, which may explain why I don't have these issues?

I usually buy just the bagels, get cream cheese separately from the supermarket (or sometimes a 1/4-pound container of their specialty cream cheese, usually garlic & herb), and perform the necessary procedures at home myself. This is the "old Upper West Side" way of doing things, dating back to when the old H&H Bagels on 80th & Broadway ruled the UWS. (The new one on Columbus & 85th - 86th belongs to the H&H Bagels East company, which is different and not as good).

The old H&H sold both bagels and cream cheese, but would not assemble them together for you. You were expected to do this yourself at home. I guess I just got used to doing things that way.

Anyway. Ever since H&H closed, Tal Bagels has consistently had the best bagels in the neighborhood. The everything bagels are absolutely perfect, and they have whole wheat everything too.

The staff is "rude" because they are relentlessly overworked and always exhausted. Please try to be patient with them, and consider maybe dropping a few dollars in the tip jar. The guys who show up at 4 AM or whenever to open are the same guys who close in the evening. On top of that, there's usually only 2 of them serving customers, and the place gets pretty busy.

This is also why the closing time listed here is not quite correct (6 PM every day? LOL). They close early as often as they can, occasionally as early as 2:30 PM on Sunday. Go as early as possible, and don't count on them being...

This was the worst place I have ever been in my life. Really. I will never forget this horendous experience of being treated humiliated and totally ruined my day. I wasn't sure to leave the bacon egg n cheese w 2 , literally 2 like 1/4 x 1.5" shriveled sad sorry pieces of "bacon" --fat.., no ketchup- of course , I said with ketchup, and stale flavorless bagels w floppy runny egg.. And a coffee for 7.00$!!!! It was pathetic, I asked for at least more bacon n he gave me like a plate of those shriveled things in front of people to embarrass me.. Then took the ketchup and was like how much do u want and squeezed super hard and a ton came out really quick and he was soaking the hot mess with mounds of ketchup in front of me. At that point I know I wasn't walking out of there w my money back, I seriously felt like chucking it at his head or smearing the cashier with it lol.. I had to walk out saying, that's just Not the way you do business, that's just stupid. hello, geniuses, ur in business to serve your customers right, how dare u do and say mean things to Any of your customers at Any age.. Hello, Yelp exists, and surprisingly so does your store!! I have no idea how. Good location I guess. But don't get ripped off for crap that you can find better on the street carts or definately your local bodega. I will never...