Einstein Bros. Bagels — Restaurant in Seattle

I do not like to judge a place so badly, however one of the staff members at the location had extremely concerning behavior. The person I’m referring to was a taller person with long pink hair and glasses. I did not get their name. This employee was loudly talking about politics and civil justice two days after the election. They were cornering their coworkers and having one sided conversations very loudly and publicly about their political views. They were so engrossed in their conversation that It took a coworker on their break to get their attention away from themselves to help me. I don’t mind waiting but it was obvious that this was just negligent. And while I agreed with a lot about what they were saying, behind the counter at your job, ignoring customers to preach to your coworkers is not the place to be talking about this stuff. Even after placing my order they kept cornering their coworkers and holding them hostage in political talk. They also swore very loudly in a quiet store to at least half a dozen customers. (Full F word, can’t put it here) While I was waiting for my food, an order went to the wrong person, this employee whistled at the wrong person who took it and snapped at them to give it back, yelling across the room “hey! Hey! That’s not your food!” In a very matter of fact-smug way; Even though it was HANDED to them. When the right person got it, the customer said “you guys seem distracted today”, and after that customer walked away this employee said “of course we’re distracted, look who you voted for”; insinuating this customer, who was not wearing any political merch, had voted for someone the employee was against. This was actually insane behavior. When I got my food, said employee had just gone to the back and I thanked the two employees who gave me the food. I told them that the work environment seems stressful and I wished them the best, they agreed it was stressful and thanked me. I am not going to describe these employees for their privacy. The reason I am posting this is because it is obvious that this work environment is hurting some of the employees, making them uncomfortable, and ruining guest experiences in the meantime. I have worked in retail and food service environments with coworkers like this who have made the entire work environment hostile and severely uncomfortable like this employee made their peers. I truly hope this can be a learning opportunity and people can find their peace at work. I am not trying to hurt any employees, or cost someone their job, just trying to make a...

This review is very late, and I rarely do reviews. I have to say something though… This was a catered order.

So… everything seemed fine at first. The catering trays were beautifully set and we got most of what we ordered. The food was yummy as usual. You’d think I would leave more stars right! Me too! But…

We did have to wait a while for the order to arrive. It was 30 min late, and when he arrived some of the cream cheese was missing. He had to come back. When he came back, there was no real apology. It was more irritation that he had to come back north to Lake City to give us the cream cheese we ordered.

I get it. If it were just these 2 negatives, I wouldn’t say anything. My real issue is neg number 3.

Ants - we ended up with leftovers. Because my partner has kids, I got many of the remaining bagels to give to her. The meeting was in the conference room of the building where I live so it was easy to carry things to my apartment.

My partner and kiddos arrived that evening and we finish one of the leftover yummy platters. Everything seems okay, but I’m beginning to notice a few tiny ants that I’ve never seen before and I live on the 5th floor. Ants on the 5th floor? Kill them. Clean the kitchen. Move on.

The next morning, we’re about to have bagels for breakfast, but there is a long line of sugar ants running from my counter. They are tiny, easy to kill but I can’t find the reason they’re suddenly there! Once I cleaned them up, and start preparing breakfast, I reach into the box of bagels and realize it’s TEAMING WITH SUGAR ANTS.

Apparently, they were there all along. Gahhhh!!

I’m never eating...

I used to love this Einstein bagel store but now no more. The quality has gone down drastically, they have increased the prices by minimum of 25% , and the store manager has become rude as well. I bought their bagels yesterday and the bagels were not fresh (they were hard), seems like frozen from previous day. They also didn't cut them as they used to do it before. Few months back, I used to get half dozen bagels (6+1) with extra cheese, it used to cost me $10 (for 7 bagels + 1 cream cheese) + $3 for extra cream cheese = $13 + tax ( $1.85/bagel ). Now, they have increased the half dozen bagel to $12 with no extra bagel, and cost of cream cheese is now flat as $4.99. so the total has now become (6 bagels + 2 cream cheese) = $17+ tax ($2.83 / bagel). They have stopped carrying garlic and onion bagels. The dozen bagel box prices has also increased from $12.99 to $18.99 (with 2 cream cheese). Also, the store manager blatantly says they have increased the prices as per direction from their corporate office, which is not true. The Einstein bagel stores in Redmond and Kirkland has not changed their prices and are way cheaper than this one. I know there has been some increase by their corporate, i.e by 10%, but this store has increased it much more. I guess Inflation is definitely Real and Seattle downtown has become way...