Bruegger's Bagels — Restaurant in Westlake

"Biggest decision of your life." These were the words that were uttered to me as I was placing my bagel order. It seemed like a delayed response to the one minute before when I was deciding what I wanted. By the way, this is dedicated to the angry short man behind the counter who absolutely despises people for no reason. Keep in mind, by the time I did order, I took only 30 seconds to place my order. There were three employees on the floor: the angry guy behind the counter, the silent cashier girl with thick-framed glasses and short dark hair under a visor restocking the beverages, and another silent girl, taller but also with dark hair, visible in the back. No one greeted anyone unless you count the guy impatiently asking the room "who's ready to order?" We looked to the people behind us (universal sign for “not us, but if anyone else is they can go first”) because we weren't ready yet, but they weren't either, so he decided to force us to move along by asking me "what do you want?" I quickly fired off several bagels that I'd like, and as he went to get them he said loudly "biggest decision of your life." It felt like he just wanted us to order and GTFO, especially since there is no indoor seating available (all of the chairs are stacked up). These people are the most unprofessional and unfriendly people I have encountered in the service industry in a long time, especially in this area. Other things of note: The guy had three wet coughs - granted, he aimed them at the floor, but gross nonetheless because he was in the middle of making my partner’s sandwich. The cashier girl later sneezed as she was preparing food and while she may have covered her nose and mouth, if you work with food, and ESPECIALLY if you're coughing or sneezing, you should be wearing a mask, which none of these employees were. There was also a short curly hair in our food and no sanitizer in sight. The cashier girl rudely rolled an empty coffee cup onto the counter toward me and when I filled it myself it was far from hot. My partner went right back in to purchase a bottle of water and although the 2nd female employee (the taller one) was standing there chatting up a customer who had already ordered and the one who had been cashiering was preparing his food, no one acknowledged her and she stood at the register for a few minutes waiting to simply pay until a third female employee peeked out of the back and the one who had been cashiering said to her "I think she wants to get something else." This third female employee with lighter hair was the only one who had decent customer service skills and bid either of us a good day. Unfortunately the receipts don't name the cashiers, so I can't name the one good employee, but I'm betting these people's dispositions don't change much, so management should know their staff well enough to figure out who among them is always friendly and professional and who isn't. I hope my descriptions were helpful. My partner and I have both worked in the service industry and this treatment of customers is unacceptable. People who take out even momentary dissatisfaction with life on polite customers should NOT have jobs in customer service. We made our purchases at 10:41am and 10:52am today, Friday,...

I love the food at Brugger's, and I personally feel they have the best bagels around N.E. Ohio. I've been a customer for multiple locations for over 20 years.

However, I'm not sure what happened to this location compared to prior years, but the customer service experience and sandwich quality has went completely downhill.

The staff is no longer welcoming, nor helpful to directing line traffic. Everyone was confused about which line to stand in. The staff rarely looked up from the counter to talk to customers, unless they were shouting orders available to grab, and only one member seemed apologetic for the wait. The slow speed for every part of the process, for a relatively smaller lunch crowd, was frustrating (in line for over 35 minutes). All of the customers were giving each-other looks of frustration. And the dine-in seats were not being cleaned after customers left.

I ordered a regular bagel breakfast sandwich, which I order often, however they still provided me with the thin-style bagel, and there was half the amount of sauce/avocado and vegetable toppings compared to normal. The avocado was very brown... And the cost was excessive for what was provided. We directly asked them to bag the bagel bundle a certain way so the everything bagels would not touch the other flavors, they didn't bother separating them the way we requested.

Lastly, Bruegger's usually has a good stock of bagel variety for their lunch crowd. We arrived close to 12:30pm; a very small variety of bagels were still available, and no additional bagels were being prepped in the back. A lot of customers were upset about the lack of options. We went there planning to get a few dozen, we ended up only getting one baker's dozen due to the lack of freshly made bagels and poor leftover options.

We will be driving the extra distance to another location, moving forward. I will never return to this one.

**I would have rated the food a 5, if excluding the...

Even though it was Christmas Eve and they were very busy, the girl cooked our order for us because they were out of the kind we needed. I am very grateful to her for cooking an extra batch for us. EDIT - 6 months later. I dropped my star rating from 5 stars because I tried to place an order over the phone, and no one would answer. I gave up trying to call after several attempts. A few days later, I sent my daughter to place an in person order so I could pay when I got there, and they refused to bag it. They had 12 of the kind I wanted at the time. My daughter was told that I had to order online, so she left. I tried to do that, but you can't specify what flavor you want online. I don't want to pay for a bakers dozen, get there, and find out I can't have the ones I wanted. I got there about 15 minutes later, and by that time, they were down to 7 of the kind I wanted. I wasn't given the option of having them make more for me. Also, when you go in to place an order, they used to make it in front of you, and you could watch, then pay. Now they have boxes on the counter, so you can't see what they are doing. You have to pay first, then wait for your order to come up. I saw someone bring theirs back because it was wrong. This place has gone down in customer service. Their excuse was because they were busy. From what I saw, in the past, they were a lot busier with better service. I am very disappointed this time, and I have been going there twice a year for at least 10 years when we visit...