I normally don't write food reviews, but after my experience at Bagel Station 23, I felt like I had…read moreto share this one.
I grew up in New York, so I'll admit right from the start that my standards for bagels are pretty high. I've been spoiled by great bagels most of my life. Living in Virginia, I don't expect every bagel shop to compare to New York, so I actually went in with pretty reasonable expectations.
When I pulled up on a Friday morning around 9:30, there was a line practically out the door. That actually got me excited. I thought, "Okay, this place must be good."
Unfortunately, that excitement disappeared pretty quickly.
By 9:30 in the morning, they were already out of most of their popular bagels. Plain bagels were basically gone, along with several other varieties. For a busy bagel shop during the morning rush, that really surprised me. A place doing this kind of volume should be anticipating the rush and producing enough of its core varieties to keep up with demand.
I ordered what was available: a blueberry bagel with cream cheese and an everything bagel with egg, cheese, and turkey bacon.
While I was waiting, another customer tried ordering a plain bagel and was told they weren't ready because they were being made right then. I looked over and, sure enough, they're boiling, seasoning, and baking bagels in the middle of the morning rush while customers are waiting.
After about 15 minutes, I finally received my order. There wasn't anywhere available to sit, so I went back to my truck and decided to eat the blueberry bagel with cream cheese first and save the breakfast sandwich for later.
That blueberry bagel was one of the most disappointing bagels I've had.
The texture was extremely dense and chewy, and the overwhelming flavor was SALT. I could barely taste blueberry at all. I couldn't even really taste the cream cheese because the saltiness of the bagel overpowered everything.
A blueberry bagel should actually taste like blueberry. Just like when you bite into a cinnamon-raisin bagel, you expect those flavors to come through. Instead, I got a dense, chewy, incredibly salty piece of dough.
What makes it even more disappointing is that this place obviously has customers. There was a line out the door. That's part of the reason I expected much better.
And if you're charging around $13 for a half-dozen and over $20 for a dozen, the quality and consistency need to be there.
I've spent my career as a chef and running kitchens, so I understand that restaurants get slammed. I understand that things happen. But running out of your primary product during the breakfast rush at a bagel shop is something that should be addressed operationally. If Friday mornings are consistently busy, production needs to start earlier and enough bagels need to be ready before the rush hits. More importantly, recipes and preparation need to be consistent.
I also want to make something clear because I'm not writing this review just to beat up on a local business.
During my career as a chef, I took negative food reviews extremely seriously. My goal was always to put out the best food possible and make sure my guests left happy. I read our reviews regularly, and when somebody had a legitimate complaint about their food, I didn't get angry or immediately assume the guest didn't know what they were talking about.
I went back and investigated it.
I would look at when the guest was there, find out who was working that station, talk to the cooks, check the recipe and execution, and if something wasn't being done correctly, we would coach and retrain. Sometimes a negative review pointed out something that we genuinely needed to fix.
And you know what? It made us better.
Over time, those negative reviews became fewer and fewer because we learned from them. That's how I believe constructive criticism should work in the restaurant business.
That's really why I'm leaving this review. I'm not hoping people stop going here. Judging by the line out the door, they clearly have a successful following. I'm hoping somebody there reads this, takes it seriously, looks at what happened that morning, and uses it as an opportunity to improve.
I'm not expecting a Virginia bagel shop to magically recreate every great bagel shop I grew up with in New York. I just expect a good bagel.
Ironically, when I'm outside New York and want something quick, I'll sometimes grab a bagel from Dunkin'. I don't expect it to be amazing, but it gets the job done. I genuinely would have preferred one of those to the bagel I had here, and I never expected to say that after seeing the line outside Bagel Station 23.
Maybe I caught them on a really bad morning. I hope that's the case, because there are obviously a lot of people who enjoy this place.
But based on my experience that morning, I left extremely disappointed.
For a place this busy, I think Bagel Station 23 has the opportunity to do much better--and I genuinely hope they do.