Einstein Bros. Bagels

"I'll start by saying the staff are so incredibly kind and clearly hard working, and part of the motivation to leave this review is because whatever system this Einsteins is using for order fulfillment is only hurting them. They should not have to work this hard or scramble this much. Whether I come at 8am or at 11am I end up waiting, along with a massive crowd of people, up to 40 minutes for my order. My order is, literally, a plain bagel with avocado (so their version of avocado toast). The avocado is pre-mashed, the bagels are premade, there is truly no reason it should take 40 minutes to put it together. This Einsteins has a menu that's the same few ingredients put together in a variety of ways, all the FOH should have to do is assembly, which should take a couple of minutes at most. And when there are (and I counted) 8 employees working front of house, it should go even faster. This has happened so many times, regardless of whether I order at the counter or through the app ahead of time, and the system is so bad that it's basically a given I'll only get my order if I pester the FOH (which I hate to do, I've worked countless fast food jobs and know it sucks). Today I waited 15 minutes before asking for an update, and my ticket was sitting, along with a bunch of others, still on the printer. 15 minutes and they hadn't even looked at it, and it was another 25 minutes before they got it to me. It's not as though I was watching order after order get fulfilled and this was exclusively a me problem, I was standing with a crowd of a dozen people all waiting for the same 20+ minutes as me. It's also not as though the staff were just standing around either, they were moving and working like crazy the entire time. The clear problem is that all 8 FOH employees were doing prep, taking orders at the counter, running the drive through, assembling sandwiches, making drinks, cooking eggs... No one seems to have a designated station. They're working so hard doing everything when the whole system would work better, and they could scramble less, if they just had designated stations. Maybe start there. But the whole supply chain sucks for everyone -- staff and customers. Waiting 40 minutes for a premade bagel with pre-mashed avocado, while watching the staff running around working crazy hard the entire time? It's insane. I could drive to HEB, buy a pack of bagels and an avocado, drive back home, and make an avocado toast faster than it takes this Einsteins to do it. Again, love the staff, they are so kind and clearly hard working. And when I do finally get the food it's great. But it's that time in between that ruins it for me. Y'all should be able to do this a lot faster with a lot fewer employees, it's baffling."

"Would love to actually be able to order and see how good it is. Have been pinned in the drive through line for about 25 minutes with no way out. Line hasn’t moved an inch and they don’t answer the phone."

"The only reason I am giving 2 starts is because the bagels are good. But how hard is it to give the customer the correct bagel? This is the second time this has happened to me. Not very good customer service at either this EB or Hutto EB. No one even greets you and you are ignored until someone finally helps you. In Phoenix, it was amazing service. Not sure what the problem is here."

"Farmhouse Sandwich was delicious, staff was really friendly and helpful with my order. The facility was clean. I will definitely be returning to this location."

"The nova lox(smoked salmon bagel) was very compact with flavor the capers balanced out with the cream cheese made a good flavor, the macchiato was sweet while the vanilla cold brew wasn’t but I added sugar packets later and the pizza bagel it was toasty but didn’t have enough cheese"