Bagel Boss Hicksville — Restaurant in Town of Oyster Bay

I hesitated to write this review, but decided I should warn people about this place.

I am giving them 5 stars for the food and 1 star for the service.

I went in last night to order 2 bagels, lox spread and 2 pastries. Now I can add pretty well in my head and when the lady said $15.00 I thought something was off. My lox spread was $5.30 and I asked her how much the bagels were. She said 2 were $2.50. I asked how much the pastries were and she said $2.50 each. So its easy to figure out that $2.50+2.50+2.50+$5.30 =$12.80. When I asked her to ring it up again, I noticed she only gave me 1 pastry not 2 like I ordered so the bill should have been $10.30.

So she overcharged me by almost $5.00. When I asked her to ring it up again, the manager comes over and instead of apologizing says to me that if all I have to worry about is $2.20 then I have it pretty good. I corrected him and said its $5.00 and it's not his money. He then said I still shouldn't worry about it and why am I getting so upset. He said that she made a mistake. “Haven't I ever made a mistake?” So instead of apologizing for his employees mistake (and I think he should watch her as she may be doing this to others), he argues with me and tries to turn this around on me.

I told him I have a right to be upset. It was $5.00 and she messed up my order. I guess he started to realize that he was wrong and then says to me 'what do I want?' “More bagels?, pastry?, 2 pastries?, a cake?” Now, if he offered me this sincerely and with an apology, I would have probably forgiven him and let it go, but his ATTITUDE was that he just wanted to get rid of me. I said that No. I don't want anything from you. I just want my correct order and my correct change. Then his employee (which I would have fired by now) tells him that the paper in the register is jammed. She couldn't even give me my $2.20 without causing more problems. At this point, he just give me my $2.20 and I leave.

Now I just wanted to buy some bagels and cream cheese. Can't someone go to a store and not have their order messed up, be overcharged, and be argued with by the manager? I didn't even want to see the manager. He came over and started to get involved, the minute I asked her to ring it up again. In my onion, the manager must be a relative, because I would have fired him a long time ago.

For future reference, you NEVER TAKE THE SIDE OF AN EMPLOYEE AGAINST THE CUSTOMER. At least not in front of the customer. You APOLOGIZE for the error, inconvenience, etc. and maybe offer the customer little something to make up for their bad experience with your business.

Now Bagel Boss has been in business forever and I doubt I am going to make much impact with my one review, but I just wanted people to know that you may get your bagels, etc. but you may get a big side of...

After the reply from the nice people at bagel boss I thought I should edit my review and write something a little more coherent. Here it goes. This is my idea of coherent. I grew up near the Plainview store. They started out with a single storefront and it was busy day and night. They were smart enough to unlock the door while they made the bagels and people came in at all hours before finally going home after a long night out. No sooner did that rush end when working people would start coming in for breakfast before work. They make gigantic bagels made and cooked the right way and overstuffed with delicious tuna or chicken salad or vegetable cream cheese. Before long they needed more space and I think they took over a card store and Roman gardens restaurant. They have grown since then but they still do everything right. They serve the freshest fish, salads, baked goods, sandwiches not to mention soups, coffee and snacks. I wish they could make a bacon egg and cheese on an everything roll, but they cant and that's ok. You can order something that conforms to their traditions (many of which are quite delicious) or you may take an assorted dozen home, slice them and freeze them. They come back nice in the toaster oven, and you can do whatever you want with them! Bagel boss is family run and has been a fixture in the community for almost 50 years maybe longer I'm not sure. Do not miss an authentic experience at the bagel boss....

P.S. Their prices have always been reasonable especially considering the quality...

Doesn't get 5 stars because of extremely poor line management. They claim there is a line but half the time the staff doesn't serve customers in the order of the line and unless you're a regular customer you have a 50/50 chance of guessing where the line begins because they don't feel it's necessary to post clear signage as to where the line starts.

Update: They have made some subtle improvements in line management, they could do more though.

Dropped a star because this "family owned" multi-million dollar company with roughly a dozen franchised locations has started charging a 3.85% fee for credit cards claiming hardship (see a popular review site for their comment on the topic). Because I'd rather not pay this fee, I've stopped ordering as much because I hate carrying cash. Raise all prices by a nickle and the combination of cash and credit cards payments will roughly balance this out and no one would be annoyed with unfriendly business practices. A bagel at 1.25 or 1.30 - virtually no one's going to care.

Alternatively, be consistent... charge a nickel for utensils. A 25 cent surcharge for dining in (to cover the cost of cable television, napkins, and the square footage they provide for their dining space), a 25 cent to go fee to cover the wrapping of the bagel and the bag and napkins. Like the credit card surcharge, these are all COSTS OF DOING BUSINESS, but if you're not going to factor them ALL in to the price of your products, then charge separately for ALL of them and lower the price of...