Fantastic bagels and fantastic service ! I lived in The Big…read moreApple for ten years. Believe me, This is the real deal!! Great ambience.

We really wanted to love this place, and I will say right away that the service was great. Everyone…read morewas friendly and helpful, and we had absolutely no complaints there. Unfortunately, the food just wasn't for us. I got the #12 Frisée Lardon on an everything bagel with the triple cut house smoked bacon, crispy potatoes, runny egg, frisée and Dijon vinaigrette. It sounded SO good, but there was a ton of frisée, and the combination of the greens, vinaigrette, runny egg and really thick fatty bacon made the whole sandwich feel very wet and slippery with burnt potato chips. I'm big on texture, and I just couldn't do it. I also wasn't a fan of the bagel itself. I was hoping for something dense and chewy, and this was much flatter than what I personally like. I understand that's a preference thing and that Benchwarmers has its own style of bagel, but it definitely wasn't what we were looking for. The drinks were decent and the service was great, but overall the food was a miss for us. I can see this being someone else's thing, but unfortunately we probably wouldn't go back.

Excellent bagels and quick service. Bagels of all kinds. Bacon, egg and cheese breakfastsread more

Trying to find my NY bagel fix and decided to give them a try…read more Cute little spot. Very simple easy menu. They have some tables not many. I ordered a bagel with cream cheese and got a black and white. Now it's not 100% NY but it'll do. My bagel was fresh. Good amount of cream cheese and the b/w cookie was good. I would recommend.

This is the Sunday morning ritual. Always great bagels. Service always friendly, if a little…read moredisorganized. Forget those chain bagel shops... Shop local!

Very average bagel, nothing special. The ordering process can still be a hassle with clumps of…read morecustomers jammed by registers. Limited parking as the lot is tiny. As for ambiance, the restaurant is noisy, sometimes crowded. We prefer going to Bruegger's Bagels in Wakefield - much better food and a lot more parking. Plus ordering is better managed.

Your hunt for first-rate pastries and bagels ends right here. It's not surprising that there's a…read moregreat deli like this in Cary -- a city as stuffed with new Northeastern transplants as it is depleted of old Southeastern woodlands. Despite the overdeveloped bleakness, Cary is, at least, a good town to find many foods, markets, and restaurants otherwise unavailable in the region. The pastry case has a wide variety of options -- everything you might hope to find in a Portuguese or Italian bakery in New England in the 1980s (my touchstone for fundamental pastries). They are all apparently made on the premises, and have the particular look of pastries from the Northeast. Purely in the interest of scientific research, rather than barbaric gluttony, I tried an apple danish, a cheese danish, and a lemon danish. The cheese danish was faultless in taste: The filling was classic New England bakery cheese filling, and the pastry dough was very soft, and light, but not crumbly. Unlike at some Italian bakeries, it wasn't edge-to-edge filled with cheese (though it was the most edge-to-edge of all three danishes, as is customary for the cheese ones, in my experience); you can, and should, easily remedy this by ordering multiples. The apple danish was of the more cinnamon-crumble-forward style, but it was still terrific. The apples were well-coated small soft bits (unlike at some lesser pastry shops where the apples are crunchy undersweetened slices or chunks). Lemon danishes are very hard to find anywhere, and it was exciting to see one here. It was also excellent. The lemon filling sweated a little bit, so be prepared to get a little sticky (well worth it -- since this is definitely the right kind of filling for a lemon danish). The bagels are also top-notch, as you'd expect. They are a tiny bit lighter and smaller than the classic NY deli bagels were a few decades ago. Which is probably a good thing, since the New York ones seemed to be made from lead-208, all-gluten flour, and condensed dwarf star. The taste is pretty correct, though (as opposed to another bagel shop in the region which does manage to make gigantic leaden NY bagels, but which taste like dense white bread). All of the expected varieties of bagels were at the ready, and in good supply. The bagel/egg/cheese/meat sandwiches are pretty much NY deli accurate (but a little lighter -- which, again, is most welcome, compared to spending the entire morning defeating a NY bodega BEC, and the entire afternoon groaning), and carefully yet briskly prepared (with very good quality meat, and with yellow -- the tastier color -- American). (There also was a slice of chocolate cake -- it, unfortunately, was of the minimally frosted type, with some sort of ill-advised sour cream mixture between the layers. We'll just forget about that item.) The shop itself isn't quite as densely packed (with either people or pastry) as a NY deli, and is also much cleaner and kinder. The service is simply excellent. Customers are all quickly moved through the line, and the orders are prepared very efficiently. Despite the speediness, everyone behind the counter is very friendly and as patient as needed. The speed of the North is combined with the friendliness of the South -- a perfect combination, especially for those of us who are hopelessly impatient, but have no desire to ever be yelled at while at a deli counter again. A great business. I hope they flourish for a very long time.

I went to NY Deli and was honestly flabbergasted by the lack of assistance I received just trying…read moreto place an order. First, the menu is written on the wall, but it looks like it may have been written years ago because much of it is nearly illegible--as the picture I included shows. When I asked the gentleman taking my order what the menu said and what some of the options were, he seemed almost as unaware as I was. Instead of helping me understand the menu or offering a few popular choices at different price points, he began making higher-priced suggestions that really weren't very helpful. At that point, I finally just asked for an egg and cheese sandwich because I figured that was something simple and safe to try. And I'm glad I did! The egg and cheese was actually very good, and honestly, that is the only reason I didn't give NY Deli a lower rating. The food showed me that there may be a lot of potential here--the ordering experience just needs some serious attention. Please consider rewriting the menu on the wall so customers can actually read it, providing paper menus, making sure staff are familiar with the menu and can offer helpful recommendations, or preferably a combination of all three. Good food shouldn't be this difficult to order. Make the experience as good as the sandwich was, and I'd be much more inclined to come back.

Best bagels in town. I wish there one in Raleigh -…read more - Ham + Swiss add egg. - Bagel of choice + honey butter cream cheese

My wife and I stopped here before going to the farmers market right near by. We shared a bagel with…read morebacon, egg, and cheese with onions on it. It was delicious. It is really close to downtown Cary park, so we sat there and enjoyed it which was really nice. The line was pretty long and someone took our order, so it had to be remade but it was worth the wait.

Stopped by on a Saturday morning to try out benchwarmers which is new to the NHID- what a delicious…read morespot!! The building is very cute and inside clean & welcoming. Staff were all very nice as well. I got the bacon egg and cheese on a salt bagel- DELICIOUS! I've never had a salt bagel before and I like it way better with a sandwich than the plain bagel. Good filling to bagel ratio as well. The coffee was delicious as well- I got the iced coconut caramel (decaf) and the flavors were all great. We will definitely be back again!

Service was great but order was really screwed up and I couldn't eat mine. Ordered a salt bagel…read morewith egg, American cheese No Dukes Mayo. I got any everything bagel with wet scramble and sausage and some very hot sauce. In a hurry to get to our destination so didn't know until we were there, ugh. Very messy to eat with a wet scramble. On top of that, very expensive! $25 for two breakfast sandwiches and a coffee. Our third bagel sandwich this week and the other places were not even $20, Coffee was great. Hip and clean with a nice outside area as well.

| Overview (Based on experience from 4 visits)…read more + Fine amount of different bagels to choose from, including Garlic + Good variety of breakfast deli-style options other than their nice selection of bagels + Nice casual breakfast spot despite small dining area + Fast and friendly customer service + Reuben breakfast sandwich is delicious - Bagels are terribly hard to bite unlike Panera's, which is disappointing considering that NC Bagel has "Bagel" in its name. - Cost about $1 extra to add the Jalapeno Cheddar bagel in the half dozen or dozen order. - Drink selection is limited with combos. Restricted from choosing bottled soda of any of the fountain drinks. - Asiago bagel tasted Plain. I could barely taste the asiago. |Final Thoughts: There is almost no reason to choose NC Bagel over Panera or other bagel shops if you just want bagel. The hard texture is a huge letdown. I've never experienced this bagel issue in Breugger's, Panera, anywhere really. There are other breakfast options I haven't tried here so might be worth exploring but right now the only reason I'd return here is if I am craving for a Reuben sandwich for breakfast. And that mostly makes up the 2 stars I'm giving it. Really hope they improve the overall quality of their bagels. This breakfast deli spot has great potential to be "The Breakfast Spot" but it won't be able to accomplish that if their bagels are as hard as rocks. | Overall Score: 2.4/5

Our favorite neighborhood bagel place. The avocado and egg bagel is my go-to, the bacon egg and…read morecheese for my hubby. They will sell out of bagels if you go too late because this place is no longer a secret. Plenty of coffee options, as well as bottled drinks. Be prepared to wait but it's worth it as the food is made on the griddle in front of you. We personally love the cold brews--multiple flavors available. Parking could be dicey depending on when you go, but it's worth it. Seating inside--go early before the crowd comes.

I hardly leave poor reviews because I respect businesses to operate in their own and best…read morejudgment--but this is level of food quality is (IMO) dangerous and outrageous. I ordered two Egg & Cheese bagels on plain, via doordash and both came with GREEN discoloration (google it for those unfamiliar) on the eggs. Never again will I eat there, but have had decent experiences in the past.

Good bagels, good sandwiches. Disappointing that they don't seem to accept orders from their app…read more They have uneven attention to folks in line, leaving some uncertainty to who will actually take your order.