Einstein Bros. Bagels — Restaurant in Tempe

1 Star because of 1 employee. Alex was the name he gave me. While waiting in line to order, the POS terminal malfunctioned right after the person before me completed their order. The cashier was very polite and apologetic (don't know her name but she had multicolored dyed hair and was very friendly) As she was trying to figure it out and stepped away, I asked ALEX, as he was walking by, if they could take orders and pay for them at the other two POS terminals at the other end of the counter. He was very short with me and told me "NO, if i can't ring it up, I can't give out food." Another girl (don't know her name, but she had a nose ring through the septum) stood at the register trying to make it work. I looked down and saw that two people were able to have their orders found and paid for at the POS terminals at the other end of the counter. So I asked her if we could go down there to order. She looked a little surprised at the idea but said yes. Know at this point it's been a few minutes and ALEX was already short with me so I was a little frustrated. So I blurted out something to the extend of "Imagine that, we can use the other two working registers to take orders and get people their food." She didn't say anything but went in the back. I walked down, placed my order and waited. Alex came out a few minutes later with a bag of food calling "Steve" (my name for the order) When I acknowledged him he held the bag in front of my face and didn't hand it to me. He said (in a trying to be threatening tone "Don't every talk to one of my employees like that, or we will have problems" I informed him that he started the bad attitude when I asked him about making and paying for orders at the other POS terminals, and that I never made a direct comment towards any of his employees. I acknowledged that I blurted out "Imagine that, we can use the other two working registers ..." but never insulted or talked down to the girl at the register. ( I was actually happy that she took the time to listen to me when Alex hadn't a few minutes earlier) At this time the girl, with the nose ring, came up and tried to get Alex to calm down, and he said something like "don't worry I got this". I ignored whatever else he was saying and looked at the girl and apologized to her (not that it was deserved, she was a bit sensitive to take that personal against her,) but I told her my frustration was at the situation and the ignorance of Alex to not even listen to what I suggested to solve the problem. She was very polite and accepted the apology. I looked back at Alex and told him that if he was going to come at a customer with attitude and threatening, he better be prepared for someone to argue back with him or more. Now here's the sad part. A week or two earlier my wife and I were shopping at the Frys Marketplace, the anchor store in that strip mall, when we overheard a verbal shouting match. I immediately stopped to look around and see what was going on. I spotted an older gentleman (50s-60s) and a young male wearing an Einstein uniform arguing. Guess who it was? ALEX Alex was screaming something to the effect of "I'm not going to fight you" Now I looked the situation over and saw a young small guy and an older bigger man who looked ready to fight. I assumed the old man was the aggressor because Alex kept yelling "i'm not going to fight you". But after my encounter with him in the Einstein store, I can only assume that Alex was rude, sarcastic, or ran his mouth to the wrong guy that day. He also said something along the lines of "i'm sick of you white people" which didn't make a whole lot of sense because he's pretty white looking to me. In any event, my wife and I live in Warner Ranch and shop that Frys, Einstein, Hallmark, regularly. For the most part our experience has always been uneventful or positive (sometimes some really long waits, but that's ok from time to time) It is a shame that you have such an angry employee starting fights with customers, even following them out...

The location on Ray and Rural in Tempe is absolute garbage. First of all, it takes way too long to get a simple bagel and coffee. And everytime I go there, an issue always comes up with either the food or an employee. Today was horrifying. I first waited way too long for my food and while I was there the manager was getting angry at another customer just trying to pick up an order. The gentleman was kind and just asking how long it would take and she did not like that he questioned her. She threatened to ban him from the store! Honestly she should be fired. No wonder this location always has issues. The employees there must hate working there if they are dealing with such an awful person as a manager. And of course, this location isn't listed on the Einstein Bros website so reporting them is nearly impossible. This location needs an overhaul. Corporate needs to step in and make some changes. No business should be ran like this.

Also, she absolutely stinks of cigarette smoke. What a turn off when you walk into a restaurant. Not something you want to smell when getting food.

Also, don't ever place an online order here because they will make you wait for 10+ minutes then tell you they don't...

I’ve routinely visited this location for better part of 15 years and on 07-30-2023 around 11am I went in to grab the same couple breakfast items I always get and when I asked the cashier if I could have the sandwich cut in half and the other item to be open faced (which is how a prior manager told me that item is supposed to be served) I received a huge eye roll with an annoyed response of “ yeah sure”. I questioned her if that was a problem and she didn’t say much. (I didn’t catch the woman’s name because in the moment I was thoroughly annoyed, however she was the only African American woman working during that shift).After I paid for my meal she then walks right to a co-worker and clear as day proceeds to gossip about me asking her if that was a problem after she rolled her eyes. Long story short, I understand places are under staffed and they only had about 3-4 employees working at the time, but that doesn’t excuse being rude to customers and gossiping to co worker like a child. I live less than a mile from this location but sadly will be driving out of my way to another location that knows how to...