NY Bagel Cafe — Restaurant in Virginia Beach

Great food, terrible customer service, awful pickup experience. I've been coming here since they opened, even met the owner the first time I came. Not sure if they're under a different management but they've been going downhill for the past year or so. I usually call ahead or order pickup via doordash. The past few times I've been, when I go in to pickup my order at the time given I still had to wait 10-15 mins to even be greeted. No one tends to the cash register so the pickup and ordering process is complete chaos, no organization, no hospitality. I guess the bagels come with a NY attitude. Today I ordered pickup on doordash, my wife went in to pickup the order at the time given and the employee was completely rude and told her "Our order wouldn't be ready for another 30 minutes and I might as well cancel the order or get another driver to get it." So, we went to Marshalls in the shopping center to burn 30 minutes. We came back, I went in this time waited 10 minutes to even be greeted, finally the employee with the cleft lip rudely asked me who I was there for? I gave him my name and he says " I looked through 25 orders and I don't see your order" and walked away. I showed the young lady at the counter my phone with the receipt, and they still insisted they didn't have an order for me and said "I don't know what to tell you." I'm not the type to escalate or cause a scene, so I just left cancelled my order on doordash, and will probably never come back. They lost a loyal patron today who has spent hundreds if not thousands plus numerous referrals. I hope they're able to to get it together for the owner's sake because he seemed like...

Ordered 2 whitefish bagels and a chicken salad bagel. The portions were decent though the price was fairly expensive.

But!

I always order ahead online when available. I love it usually.

I walk in and I hear an employee yell for a customer to walk up and get their order. After the customer is handed their order I informed the employee I’d order online, payed & my name. He informed me I had to wait in line behind about a dozen people waiting to order.

Unfortunately this business requires order ahead to wait inline behind customer who are ordering in person. Waiting in line behind every customer who didn’t bother planning ahead and don’t even know what they want when they are at the order window.

To be clear. I’d ordered ahead, paid with a tip & the website even told me precisely when my order was ready.

I should have been in an out in less than a minute. My order was ready and I know this because I could see it when I’d asked for it just after walking through the door.

In order to improve the efficiency of their business all they need to do is relocate where they station the order ahead orders to where the employees hand the in-house order customers their orders. Which just happens to be very close to the entrance. Why would they want people spending 20 minutes waiting inline for orders that are already paid for and fully prepared? It’s asinine.

They clearly don’t like money. While the food was good people’s time is valuable. They won’t be getting any more of my money until they learn to value their...

I LOVE their bagels. The egg everything is my absolute favorite. Prices are decent. Service is awesome. My favorite is the ham, egg, and Swiss on an egg everything bagel. Sandwich is big enough for me to split with my 12 year old and we are both full after only half of a breakfast sandwich. I’m usually between orders number 1 and 5 at the very start of the day when the food is at its freshest…. except for one thing…

Now hear me out… while the sandwich I list above is my absolute favorite, I’ve tried their bacon on THREE occasions and all three times I ended up tossing the sandwich. Why? The bacon. It tasted old. Like yesterday bacon. At $9 a sandwich, that’s a lot of money to go into my trash can. So I asked the young man at the counter when the bacon was made. He admitted that it was made yesterday. It’s yesterday bacon and tastes as such. Like, it’s really bad. And I’m fat, so I KNOW bacon, lmao, so I knew it was old bacon. I knew it was yesterday bacon because your establishment never smells like bacon, lol… and fresh bacon has an aroma. Please, for the love of God, please make your bacon in the morning. I understand wanting it pre-cooked because you’re always so busy that you can’t make it to order. I get that. But PLEASE stop making it the day before. Heck, I’ll pay extra for fresh bacon, lol…

But seriously, outside of that, the food is amazing. I still gave five stars because the other foods are great, but that yesterday...