Einstein Bros. Bagels — Restaurant in West Chester Township

It’s been some time since I’ve been compelled to comment in a review forum like this, but my recent experience at Einstein Bros. Bagels in West Chester was so unsatisfactory that I felt I had to weigh in.  For me, breakfast is the most important part of any work day.  The day is still fresh and full of possibilities and I enjoy jump starting my day from time-to-time by grabbing a bagel.  I had been avoiding this location due to a previous poor experience but I thought enough time had passed to give the location a second chance.  Boy was I wrong.

I arrive at the drive-thru line at 7:22 am and wait patiently for the driver ahead to place their order.  An order at Einstein Bagel is not a complicated task.  There are minimal customizable options, no secret menu... this is a bagel joint.  Somehow it takes two minutes to place this order, fine.  I quickly pull through and place my order in a matter of seconds. Toasted everything bagel with honey almond spread.  Done.  I whip around the drive-thru and am met with an impenetrable row of cars.  I sit idly by while three, four minutes pass. I wonder what the patrons in head of me could have possibly ordered.  The teller hands the first car a bag that couldn't possibly contain more than 3 bagels.  Next car up another four minutes passes.  No movement.  Finally, a bag containing a single item is transferred!

I'm finally up to the window.  Nine minutes have passed since I have arrived in the drive thru line and I am wondering if I could raise a yeast strain, knead bread, and bake bagels from scratch in the amount of time I've waited in this "fast" food line.  I sit at the window for three minutes, no response from within.  At last a cashier appears.  I practically throw my credit card in the window to hurry the transaction and beg for no receipt.  It takes another minute and I finally have a bag in hand.  It's 7:34 am and I have no idea how to explain to my grandkids on my death bed why I won't have any more time.

Let me describe the steps that I suspect are required to prepare my drive-thru order.  A stack of bagels has already been prepared (read: un-bagged) and sits in a large bin.  The bagel can then be grabbed by an attendant and tossed in any orientation onto a machine who's only job is to make a clean bisecting cut.  The sliced bagel is placed yet another automated machine to toast the edges on a 15-20 second timer.  Honey almond spread is wiped, and the whole package is haphazardly wrapped in a sheet of paper.  What I've described in a ninety second task.  So I guess what confuses me is how three people with staggered orders could possibly require twelve minutes to be properly addressed by this establishment.

I unravel the mess of wrapping at my desk and the bagel hasn't even been toasted.  The consistency is mealy and cold and the shear toughness of the bread makes it difficult to chew.  My morning and subsequent day has...

I have been going to Einstein Bagels for years. When traveling for my job I order, online, two dozen bagels with 4 containers of cream cheese and it conveniently comes with knives and napkins. It’s perfect for a group of co-workers. This is the same order I have made many times throughout the US but this time from the West Chester location. I got to work and opened the two boxes. No knives or napkins. I called the location and asked for the manager. The gentleman stated that he was a manager. I told him that I have ordered from Einstein many times and they have always included knives and napkins. I asked him if my co-workers are supposed to use their fingers to scoop out the cream cheese? He asks me to hold, and a woman gets on the phone and says she is the general manager. Now I have to repeat my whole story. I shortened it for this review. In the middle of my story, she said if I stopped talking, she could tell me how she can help. Really? Who says that? Yes, I was sarcastic about using fingers but there was also a 5 mile back up on the highway and I was not driving back to pick up knives and napkins. My co-workers wanted to dive into the bagels immediately. She proceeded to tell me that they have some employees being trained. If that is the case, then the order should have never been wrong! The employee being trained should have been watched every step of the way. Maybe the trainer needs to be retrained! I walked in and several employees were talking so it's not like they didn’t have time. The general manager stated she could drive the knives and napkins to me. That was a good suggestion, but the meeting would have started, and we don’t have interruptions. There is a snowball effect when the trainer at Einstein didn’t do his job correctly when training the new employee. She tried, but we didn’t have time to wait. Hopefully instead of using the time it took to drive to me, she used the time to train all her employees especially the trainer! I hung up abruptly because nothing she could say at that point would have helped. Obviously, I will never go back to the West Chester location, but I will go to...

The food is horribly overpriced in store and on Uber Eats. We ordered a turkey bagel and an all-nighter and a separate jalapeno cheese bagel along with two of the twiced baked hashbrowns. We didnt even get the hasbrowns. I paid 35 bucks for all of it. It was all so underwhelming. We didn't even get part of our order, our uber driver said that's the only bag he was given. The spread on just the bagel was barely there, there was 3 super thin slices of tuekey on the turkey sandwich and hardly any bacon on the all-nighter. So here I am, having horribly mideocre food, paid too much, and there's barely anything on our orders. I didn't get what I paid for, and I won't be back. I wasted my hard earned money on something I regularly make at home when I could have just made it myself, including the bagel and spreads. We heard great things about this place, but the people we talked to must have went somewhere else because this was not what we were told it'd be. They food looks nothing like the pictures either. I really hope one day they get it together and give a product worth what they charge. I got refunded for missing items...