Einstein Bros. Bagels — Restaurant in Pflugerville

Note my wife and I rarely complain about anything. However, if I could give 0 stars this would be the time. I had to search for the official customer service because we did not get a receipt. Maybe so we wouldn't complain?

Today 4/23/21 & 4/16/21 my wife and I had placed an order under the mobile app.

We both work at a nearby high school and this is on our way. We understand that the mornings are busy so we placed our orders 30 minutes in advance. However, when we arrived on both occasions it had been encroaching 45 minutes and our order was nowhere to be seen.

Today was the worst outing, we do not have a receipt because they didn't give us one. First, someone had to let us into the store because they had locked the door to keep customers from entering. A 3 person family let us in and said " this is awful we've waited over 40minutes for our order and gave up and left. We entered and we thought we saw our order on the to-go area, the name labeled as someone else's but it started with an M. There wasn't a receipt on the bag so we couldn't confirm. We inquired and it asked if it was ours, if so it needed another coffee. An employee adamantly told us "no that's someone else's" and we asked, "Are you sure?" The response was yes. So we waited and waited and waited. Not a single employee interacted with us even after 10 minutes after we had already been the only 2 people inside the store. At this point, it had been almost an hour since we placed our mobile order. The manager finally asked which order we were waiting on. We couldn't pull up the receipt on the app but they pulled it up on the register and said oh this was made, and it had been the very same order we thought about earlier. The most insincere apology was given, they made our other coffee and we left, when we opened the bag in the car we were missing an item (hash browns) but we were so annoyed we would not bother to ask nor did we have the time.

All during the time this was occurring the employee barely communicated with customers, little to no communication went on with employees, I did not see receipts on bags to ensure each order being prepared was accurate. The manager even asked if the door was still locked to someone, and upon confirmation, she responded "Good that's how I want it." In what business do you lock the door to prevent customers from entering? What if someone had an order already placed? Instead of communicating with each other on what orders were up to get through a rush, orders continued to be casually made and the employees jested with each other. I don't believe everything has to be extremely serious when it gets busy, but with incredible delays, there should be urgency.

We will never again visit ANY Einstein Bros Bagels, and I highly discourage any person from visiting this specific store. Note my wife and I are normally calm people and we hardly ever complain about delays, but these two occasions nailed it. These two times were not the only times they were slower but this was rock bottom service. This store is not organized or managed well, and unless changes are made I'm not sure it ever will be. Maybe some other company will settle and compete in the area, at least the customers will be happier.

As a final note: My mother managed a fast food restaurant in a large city when I was younger and I worked at it. We would get slammed far harder than I have ever seen this store slammed, but we consistently managed to get orders out well. If we failed we comp'd the order. In all those years I can never remember a situation where it was okay to make a customer wait 1hr and simply say a singular, "I'm sorry." Ownership needs to step in here.

Feel free to reach out me if you need more details, and if the response to me is automated, you can truly feel how much they "care" about...

I'll start by saying the staff are so incredibly kind and clearly hard working, and part of the motivation to leave this review is because whatever system this Einsteins is using for order fulfillment is only hurting them. They should not have to work this hard or scramble this much. Whether I come at 8am or at 11am I end up waiting, along with a massive crowd of people, up to 40 minutes for my order. My order is, literally, a plain bagel with avocado (so their version of avocado toast). The avocado is pre-mashed, the bagels are premade, there is truly no reason it should take 40 minutes to put it together. This Einsteins has a menu that's the same few ingredients put together in a variety of ways, all the FOH should have to do is assembly, which should take a couple of minutes at most. And when there are (and I counted) 8 employees working front of house, it should go even faster. This has happened so many times, regardless of whether I order at the counter or through the app ahead of time, and the system is so bad that it's basically a given I'll only get my order if I pester the FOH (which I hate to do, I've worked countless fast food jobs and know it sucks). Today I waited 15 minutes before asking for an update, and my ticket was sitting, along with a bunch of others, still on the printer. 15 minutes and they hadn't even looked at it, and it was another 25 minutes before they got it to me. It's not as though I was watching order after order get fulfilled and this was exclusively a me problem, I was standing with a crowd of a dozen people all waiting for the same 20+ minutes as me. It's also not as though the staff were just standing around either, they were moving and working like crazy the entire time. The clear problem is that all 8 FOH employees were doing prep, taking orders at the counter, running the drive through, assembling sandwiches, making drinks, cooking eggs... No one seems to have a designated station. They're working so hard doing everything when the whole system would work better, and they could scramble less, if they just had designated stations. Maybe start there. But the whole supply chain sucks for everyone -- staff and customers. Waiting 40 minutes for a premade bagel with pre-mashed avocado, while watching the staff running around working crazy hard the entire time? It's insane. I could drive to HEB, buy a pack of bagels and an avocado, drive back home, and make an avocado toast faster than it takes this Einsteins to do it. Again, love the staff, they are so kind and clearly hard working. And when I do finally get the food it's great. But it's that time in between that ruins it for me. Y'all should be able to do this a lot faster with a lot fewer employees,...

"Where's the beef?" & they did not give me the 2nd egg I paid for. I quit eating at Taco Bell because they seemed to have a corporate policy to give out far less ingredients than what is shown in commercials & their menu. Einstein Bros Bagels the same? This egg & brisket sandwich is tasty (really like that brisket was lean) but I didn't get my moneys worth. Far less brisket than shown on menu photo. [[Note: Understandable if rising costs of ingredients increase prices. My objection is to the false advertising - when advertisement photos show far more ingredients than is the reality.]] The lady who took my order was impatient & rude at times. I told her it was my 1st visit. I had questions because I wanted some bagels & others tasty looking items - especially since a # of items in their display case were not labeled. She asked me 3 times - are you getting 6 or a dozen. I finally got upset & told her I didn't know yet. The apple cinnamon bagel was interesting. I asked how people had it prepared & she said buttered & toasted. I tried that at home the next morning & it was tasty. Got 2 of their pretzel bagels. After brushing off the salt I made 1 (that she had cut way crooked so one side was too thin to hold ingredients) into a ham, cheese & spinach sandwich. That was very good. Loved the chewy bagel. Unfortunately I'll likely not be back. Poor customer service, inability to get an order correct, stealing my money & things being overpriced outweighs their tasty products. Means I'll not...