Abel's Bagels — Restaurant in Spring Valley

I was craving really good bagels after having some pretty tasty ones on a recent trip to Oregon. I looked for something nearby and found Abel's (and it isn't even really close to me). Sooooo good! We have now been twice, and it's been great each time. It can get pretty busy, and it's not too big inside, so you may wait a little bit. I loved everything about my food from Abel's!

You can pick the type of bagel you get and customize the cream cheese. They also do bagel sandwiches, smoothies, fresh juice, and coffee. Both times, I got the garlic bagel toasted, and in the cream cheese, I added red onions and scallions. I looooove these bagels! They go heavy on the cream cheese, which I love. You can ask for it to be lighter. These are hand rolled, boiled, and then baked, and you can taste the freshness. What would make these even better was if, for the cream cheese, they had a garlic and herb add in. The price for the bagel and cream cheese is very reasonable at around $5 each. I also got an orange juice each time, which was $9. It is fresh, squeezed, and a pretty decent size, so I justify it. You can create your own juice as well, or they have other creations of their own.

We ordered in store the first time and then ordered for pickup the second time. When we ordered in store, there were people waiting, but no wait to order. We waited maybe up to 10ish min for our food and ate in our car right there in the parking lot. The second time, we ordered pick up through Uber Eats and drove it all the way home to eat. Quality was great each time, and I devoured them! Next time, I'd like to try one of the sweeter bagels with some sweet cream cheese add-ins. The first time, my anxiety did sort of overwhelm me with the choices, and I wanted to not take too long to decide because of the people behind me. The order ahead option made me feel a lot better about choosing. I 5000% recommend this place if you love bagels and places like Einsteins just aint cutting it.

Anxiety inducing questions I had that may help you: Is it going to be too small to eat inside? - In general, no. It just depends on how busy it is. It isn't big, but there are a few tables and a sort of bench of seats. We were able to grab 2 cute little seats while we waited for our food the first time. We just ate in the car because I don't like groups of people.

How does the cream cheese work? - I was a little confused when I was looking this place up online, but it's really simple. You start with basically a plain cream cheese, and the options listed are mix-ins you can add. Think of it like ice cream! They have sweet and...

EDIT: made the mistake of giving this place another try on Mother’s Day. I thought I’d avoid all the waiting and crowds by ordering online for pickup. I placed my order at 10:06 and didn’t receive it until 10:54…

The place was PACKED. I know it’s a holiday, but they just don’t have a system to deal with crowds. The woman working the counter ended up flipping the iPad register around at one point and taking orders in the area where people were waiting in line because there were also so many people working behind their counter.

One of the girls working yelled “why do you keep bumping into me?” to her coworker and her male coworker snapped “because there’s 5 people behind this counter!” I was horrified for her, all the employees were clearly stressed and they were all kind of snapping at each other. But at the same time, some employees were just walking around not looking like they were doing much.

The food… I ordered two bagel sandwiches with a smoothie. On the Grubhub app I couldn’t find an option to add turkey, so I picked “add bacon“ but wrote a note that said to substitute the bacon for turkey if possible.

They gave me turkey on the side and there was still bacon in the sandwich 😂 And they randomly gave us an extra bagel.

Oh well.

— (original review below) I keep wanting to give this place another chance because their food is so good! But unfortunately we just haven’t had great experiences with the wait times and service.

I usually go in the morning, which is of course busy. Inside, it’s small! They just changed up their seating recently, but it’s always been crowded. If you’re standing in line, you’re an arms length from a table at all times. And when it’s busy, the wait times are long (15+ mins) and it can get pretty uncomfortable to squeeze past people. Employees and customers are always bumping into each other.

They always seem to have lots of employees behind the counter, so it’s even more frustrating when orders take a while. This morning my fiancé and I made a pick-up order and got to the store a bit early. We waited 20 minutes and watched one guy just mindlessly wipe the same spot on the counter for 5 minutes 😅 It just seemed a little inefficient for so many people to be working but only a few seemed to actually be making food/taking orders.

The food has always been delicious, I usually get a bagel sandwich and a smoothie. They are a bit pricey though. Unfortunately, today they got my order wrong—and I was pretty annoyed since I paid an extra $3 for cream cheese and I...

I’m not on this side of town often so I was very happy to find this place! I had an appointment with a new doctor nearby and wanted to grab something to eat after. I was thinking of somewhere I usually go, but decided to check Yelp and try somewhere new. These bagels intrigued me, especially since I’m a sucker for good, housemade egg and chicken salad.

When I got inside, I still looked at the menu, as everything sounded so good! I narrowed it down to the chicken or egg salad (of course). When I got in line, this nice lady behind the counter asked me what I wanted. I told her it was my first time and that I was torn between the egg or chicken salad. She said that the chicken salad was really good so I immediately said ok and wanted to go with it with a sesame bagel and that I was good with everything on it. She then asked if I wanted it toasted which I said yes and then asked if I wanted cheese with it and suggested mozzarella, Swiss and after saying Swiss I immediately said mozzarella - figured it would be good. She started working on it and I kept looking at the menu as I was interested in the drinks as well.

I love fresh juices especially when there’s a good mix of health benefits. I ended up choosing the “Red Rubber Ball” because I love beet juice and the combination of other health benefits with everything else inside (orange, carrot, lemon, ginger, tumeric). I didn’t necessarily watch them make my juice but I assume that it’s fresh since I saw the fruits and vegetables on the prep counter, it tasted very fresh, the juice came out a little after my sandwich, and if I let my drink sit a while, the contents inside would separate, which is normal with fresh juice. So I would say the juice was very fresh and refreshing.

I really loved my meal as it was super yummy, tasted like it was made with quality ingredients, and it was very flavorful. I haven’t had a bagel sandwich this good in years and the last time was probably in LA (Yeasty Boys Bagels). But honestly, I would say that I enjoyed this bagel a lot more! The bagel itself was very yummy and doughy, which I really love when it comes to bagels. That bagel taste is something special. I definitely will come back again as I need to try the egg salad and other bagels with cream cheese! Also another plus, it was nice to hear Christian music playing while I was there and seeing scripture in the bathroom. Will definitely come back. Thanks for the great service and having a...