Schmear Bagel Parlor - 12th St — Restaurant in Philadelphia

Went on a busy Saturday, massive convention in town so they were overwhelmed. That's understandable and the staff remained really friendly (that's the 3 stars). But if you're going to recommend to everyone to TOAST their bagel, you need more than a countertop toaster oven.

It took 30+ min to get 2 toasted bagels with cream cheese, no mixins. That's ridiculous. They had 2 people trying to make everything, but they were following a ticket model as best I could tell, so large orders with more complicated bagels were being made ahead of simple orders. The shop is very small, so there's not really anywhere to wait either.

Once we finally got our bagels, they were lackluster on taste. They overloaded the cream cheese, which was really meh. Clearly it's meant to be the base of the mixes, but come on, plain cream cheese is good normally. I'm mad that I paid $10+ for something I could have had at a Continental breakfast in 1/3 the time with...

If I could give 0 stars I would. my boyfriend is allergic to any kind of nut. He isn’t deathly allergic thankfully he just gets violently ill. I specifically ordered the French toast sandwich with no walnuts online. Thankfully I went to take a bite first and it was full of walnuts. This location has no phone so I had to walk back to tell them. The man at the counter was so rude and told me he didn’t make it. He then proceeded to tell me the sandwich can’t be made without nuts so instead of telling me that when I came to pick it up they just gave it to me. He then also said it’s my fault for this happening. He did refund me, but regardless if it was an allergy or you just don’t like something if you put a comment to edit your food item and they can’t accommodate they should tell you before serving it to you. I have worked in the food industry my whole life I know mistakes happen but the way I was treated after was...

I truly feel bad writing this review. They seem like really sweet people. But absolutely the worst bagels I have ever had in my life, and not very good coffee. I ordered an everything bagel with cream cheese. They gave me a mini bagel with a pound of cream cheese on it, and on top of that, the bagel was hard as a rock. Might have been a mixture of old/overtoasted, or it’s the recipe, I don’t know. It was very bad. It was really a waste of money. I couldn’t even bite into it before I just threw it away. The coffee was burnt or just not good coffee. Had to go to dunking down the street. I’m writing this as constructive criticism so that maybe they can notice. I’m sorry....