House of Bagels Central Coast — Restaurant in San Luis Obispo

I am never spending another dime at House of Bagels. Today, I had one of the worst Customer Service experiences in my whole life, on my birthday too, at that. I have a condition where my feet hurt excruciatingly whenever I stand on them for more than a couple minutes. So it made sense for me to place an order by phone so that I wouldn't have to suffer standing in line. I attempted to call an order for breakfast in, and the person that picked up the phone asked if I was willing wait on hold, to which I responded yes to. About 10 or 15 minutes transpired, and I gave up and attempted to redial. For the next 15 minutes every time that I attempted to redial the line was busy every time. After this point in time, whenever I dialed, someone would pick up the phone and I could hear them clicking my call over to the fax machine, which was rude, loud, and annoying.

I eventually got so fed up with the experience that I personally drove over to House of Bagels and patiently waited in the ordering line to attempt filing a complaint to management about the situation, despite the pain I experienced in my feet. . At this point my main mission was to communicate through flaws in customer service, and my secondary objective was to order something if they were going to do something to make it right. I felt like for the hassle that I went through I should have been comped me one free bagel with my order. I explained everything that happened and showed the manager my call log of having attempted 32 calls to the restaurant. She explained that it had been really busy, and someone scheduled for work that day couldn't make it. I completely understand that in-person customers should be more highly prioritized than mobile customers. would have let it all go too. But I think refusing to answer the phone for an entire (more than an) hour is taking that idea to an extreme and is inexcusable. I would have let it all go, but House of Bagels was unwilling to do compromise and do something to make it right. I told them that if they did not make it right, I would go somewhere else and I would never come back. The manager told me she couldn't do anything for me, and I should go ahead and got somewhere else. I gave them one final chance and asked "I have been a loyal customer for years; are you willing to sacrifice hundreds of dollars of future business because you're unwilling to comp me one bagel for my hassle?" In response I got an "I apologize. I'm sorry.". It was obvious to me that the apology clearly was not heartfelt; otherwise, they would have settled the matter.

I took my business to House of Bread instead (The restaurants are not related, despite sharing "House of" in their names by the way). A super nice guy at the front helped me out and, and I shared my bad experience with house of Bagels. nlHe concurred that House of Bagels customer service is terrible, though they have good food, and that he personally ALSO has been on the receiving end of bad customer service at House of Bagels! It's kind of sad that they make such good food, but operate this way. I just can't in good conscience support patronizing House of Bagels with my own money anymore. If I did, than that gives the message that they can get away with terrible customer service with impunity. I will miss their bagels, but I just can't let a manager's attitude like that slide. Overall, the terrible customer service factors quite heavily in my 1-star review despite...

They desperately need a change in management and employees. The last few times I have been here the wait time has been 30-40 minutes even though there is no one in line and they aren’t busy. The employees don’t care, move like snails, total space cadets. If you try to call in the order no one picks up the phone. The one time I did get through she immediately put me on hold, after u had been trying to get through for over ten minutes- and then the line hung up on me. Tried to call back and got a busy signal. When I got to the store no one is even in line.

The food here is really good and there isn’t another bagel shop locally that makes bagels like this- that is the Only reason I would darken the door of this place. Honestly I hate going here because the customer service is absolutely appalling. And it’s clear from the customer reviews that I am not the only one who feels this way. What used to be my favorite bagel place has now become somewhere I dread going to Becasue I know it’s going to be an ordeal just trying to get a simple bagel with cream cheese.

They are always understaffed and the staff they have doesn’t have a clue how to work effectively. They need to train people properly and completely turn around the service or this place will bend up closing. The only reason it’s surviving for now is because there isn’t anyone else serving the same kinds of bagels. If another shop were to open within a 30 min drive, they are doomed.

Also they don’t do DoorDash for pick up or delivery and forgot about getting a...

Slow and no selection. We stopped here because we love our House of Bagels in Palo Alto. Lesson leaned - this is NOT the same franchise and nothing like our usual experience. We arrived around 8:30am on a Saturday and the majority of the flavors were unavailable, including Plain! I’m used to Pumpernickel being unavailable at times, but not mainstays like Plain and Everything. They seemed to really not be able to manage the capacity to match demand. We made do with the available options only to learn the service is SLOW. So slow they gave me a beeper to wait for my order even though there had been only 1 person in line ahead of me when I arrived, and no one in the shop appeared to be waiting for their order. This seemed odd to get the beeper, but it was 13 minutes before I got 2 toasted bagels with cream cheese. I’m just comparing this to House of Bagels Palo Alto Saturday morning experience where I usually wait for 3-5 minutes, but then get my order in no more than 2 minutes. They had 1 cashier and 3 people preparing bagels. All I can guess is they were preparing called in orders ahead of people already in their store. The bagels tasted fine - nothing special. I’ll try another option next time we pass thru SLO.

Bottom line - on their website they say email your order the day ahead before 1:30pm. Otherwise expect limited selection...