Cosi

What a misnomer… Cosi is the polar OPPOSITE of cozy. The frigid demeanors of the staff, the extended wait, and their signature flatbread (lightly seasoned sawdust crisps) should be enough to deter you from setting foot in this degenerate establishment.
We left a sad face in bread crumbs bc the guy working the cash register was a meanie to us…

Great sandwiches and service. Stopped here today to grab lunch/​dinner and as always, food and service were great. Special shout out to «Richard» that works there. Very friendly and made sure everyone was happy. I love this place! Always in my rotation of places. I have never left with anything but a positive experience.

They were better before. Mediocre sandwiches, Cold customer service (new faces as it has been a while) and with so many options in area, I’ll pass. And if you have a kid with a peanut allergy, by pass. Thank God I asked, you only change your gloves?

Free coffee every Wednesday for the rest of the year. No catch!
Love the pesto melt sandwich but can’t go wrong with any of their fresh food.
Free wifi. Lots of seating. Nice staff.

Cosi vs. Panera bread. Frenemies across the street from each other in downtown Birmingham. Now, I’ve always gone to Panera bread. I loved the warm color palate and I’ve practically tried all their food so it’s my safety net if I’m hungry and undecided.
But Cosi, I like Cosi. It’s refreshing. It’s modern, fresh AND they offer baked flat breads. I may love Panera, I feel like Cosi is a summer fling with a lot of potential to win over my fat appetite. I will come again :)

Good soups and salads. Nice lunch spot or somewhere to meet up with friends for a quick bite. Service is so-​so. It took awhile for our order to be ready and they weren’t that busy. Still, it’s inexpensive and the food is good.

Manager was extremely helpful today when I forgot my wallet. So embarrassing! Thank you for the help! TBM, tomato soup, and dark choc, cookie always good. Greek salad good too but watch they don’t over-​dress it unless you like lots of dressing.

I went here for the first time a few weeks ago, and I loved the different variations of food they had available. I was not able to decide what I wanted to eat and the staff was beyond nice and patient with me, and actually helped me pick something. And on top of that, I am an extremely picky eater, they basically created something that worked for me. I would recommend this place to anyone. Staff extremely friendly, and the place is very clean and well kept. :)

A solid choice for casual fast food in Birmingham. Love the Turkey and Brie sandwich, and their soups are great.

It was bad. This restaurant was not organized. I’ve never been this restaurant before, so I didn’t know how works. I ordered the food at the counter and waited til the food came out. I thought I should pay after they brought me the food to the counter, but the guy served our food to our table. It sounds good, but when should I pay then?! They will give me a bill later?! It made me so confused. Finally, nobody brought us the bill, so I went to the billing counter, and I paid. The guy at the billinging counter was not friendly at all.

I’ve been there a total of four times, paid $ 10+ for each meal and haven’t found anything I’ve liked. The only reason I gave a two instead of a one was because I’m hoping for a reprieve with the breakfast items or something…

In strange life traditions that I share with my close friends, going to Cosi and getting the «do it yourself» s’mores is one of them. This has become a tradition every time I go back to MI and we always like to relax in the high backed armchairs and gossip the afternoon away.
Back in the day when we were all jailbait and just legal to drive, we would hit downtown Birmingham or B-​ham and catch a movie at the Palladium and then go to Cosi… and get home before that weird B-​ham curfew of course. Yes, this city had a curfew. Regardless, now that we’re all significantly older and more alcohol friendly, we still like to come back for the S’mores.
There’s something strangely fun and satisfying in toasting your marshmallows over a small iron wrought burner while chatting with old friends. There’s a trick to toasting and not lighting your marshmallow on fire (btw, I’m so pro at this that it’s not even funny). In addition the food here is tasty for a casual bite. I may even like this place more than Panera. Why yes, that is blasphemy in my book.
I’ve had their Turkey and Brie, Smokey Chicken flatbread pizza, and their TBM melt. Essentially the TBM is like a Caprese salad… in sandwich form. In addition their housemade flatbread is amazing and my dad actually asks me to bring some home for him whenever he knows I’m dropping by with friends. I’ve liked everything that I have tried here and their ingredients taste fresh and the flavors are all complimentary.
The funny backstory about Cosi is that I actually first had it in D.C. when I was 14 years old or so. My parents were there for a meeting and brought me along. Cosi was directly below our hotel so I would pop by there and buy myself lunch. When I discovered that there was a location in Birmingham, I was beyond thrilled.
In my book, a place that had given me so many great memories will always have a special place in my heart. I’ve spent many a weekend afternoon there hanging out with friends, people watching, and of course, checking out all the cool cars that come into town for the Dream Cruise. For me, this place represents a time lost in Nostalgia and tasty eats. What’s not to love?

Huge Cosi fan! I always get the turkey and brie so i can’t really comment on the rest of the menu but my friend and I go here weekly for lunch and she enjoys her food as well. The lady at the counter will start making my sandwich when I walk in which is fantastic. The bread is usually amazing but once in awhile it will be a little dry and crunchy, definitely better when it’s right out of the oven and warm. I also have tried the hummus and cucumbers before and the hummus is delicious! The only compliant other than the bread would have to be the counter set-​up. You order your sandwich and wait for it then pay. It should be set-​up like the other locations where you order and are given a number. Definitely recommend.

Great food but service could be better. I don’t know why the people working there are so rude. Food is good though, but make sure you know what kind of food you like or the name of the item you want because the staff likely won’t help.

Staff here do not know the concept of customer service. Very unpleasant experience. We wanted a quick bite to eat. As we were looking UP at the confusing menu, the guy behind the counter told us it was ten to nine and they closed at nine and they would want to lock the doors at nine fifteen. I thought this was very rude. So we walked out and went to Panera bread across the street who had no problem serving us soup and salad.
Never had the chance to try the food.

I had a really poor service experience at Cosi on 135 N Old Woodward, today. I drop in once in a while to check out the menu as I get tired of trying Panera Bread across the road. I even bought a $ 25 Cosi card the last time I was here, but I am not going back to Cosi again in the near future even if it means that i will lose money thats left on the card.
The lady preparing my salad was extremely rude. I asked for a tandoori chicken salad and soup and far from helping, she was very condescending. I had just walked in from the cold and was beginning to recover, so probably didnt hear her very well. But far from being customer centric and helping me with the order, she was at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. I dont think I will ever visit Cosi again, especially if they hire such poor talent to handle their customers. The lady at the billing counter was OK, but she forgot my pack of chips — I can forgive that as oversight on her part though.
Good luck with your bad customer service, Cosi.

The plus is that I like the location and the atmosphere here. It’s open and well lit. I normally only end up here with a group of friends who like the food. For me, the service is much worse than the Southfield location. It is much slower and there seems to be much less interest in how you are enjoying your meal. I know that some of the customers in this area can be a bit pushy but we’ve always been a friendly group to wait on.
I also think that Cosi as a chain really should offer more variety on the menu for vegetarians and vegans. The signature salad with bread is a nice meal but way overpriced at $ 8 when you can literally walk down the street and get a full, much more varied meal (Mediterranean, Indian, Thai, coney island, deli style food and more are all just down the street) at a cheaper price. I think Cosi is popular because people find something they like and it’s got a good location. For me there are about 5 choices with the salads and then a (bland) hummus sandwich. It’s not my favorite but I’ll be a good friend and go with my friends who like it.

I only came here because my lunch companion and I never conferred at exactly which What Crêpe? we were going to for lunch, so I ended up in B’ham and he in RO, so I just went to Cosi instead (I had to get back to work and ain’t nobody got time to regroup).
Even with such low expectations (it looks like a chain, so I wasn’t expecting much), Cosi didn’t cut it. Not in service, not in food, not in price. WHY THE HECK ARE PEOPLE EATING HERE???
Let’s start with no clear place to order. Just a rounded banquette with people working diligently and free-​form behind, and a few signs placed here and there «Order Sandwiches here»… «Order Salad here»… «Order Soup here» What if I want one of these and one of those in my order? How are you going to keep it together? Does that mean I shuffle to someone else to do order each part, ’cause I’m gonna get the little sandwich and soup or salad deal???
And the menus are behind you by the time you order. I am not as familiar with what they have, so because the guy taking my order suddenly had to run and take care of something else (because he was doing dual-​duty of taking orders and filling them), I had to go back and confer with said menu so I wouldn’t forget the particulars. Just a really, really, really bad set-​up for ordering, for everyone involved, me AND them. No wonder people pronounce them surly in the reviews on here. They’re trying to keep up with the sh*tty, sh*tty system they have to work with!
And yes, my order was wrong. Because one guy verbally got it, and another guy finished it up (I had it to go, not for there, and poor guy had to fix it.) AND THEN I HAD TO CARRY MY HOT FOOD IN MY BARE HANDS ACROSS THE FLOOR TO THE CASHIER. What in the what, now? Y’all crazy?
Then the surly bastich at the register… Yeah, you’d hate your job and life, too, if you had to have the customer repeat what they had to order to you, too, after the fact. The people in front of me placed their order with him, and he had to tell them «Not me, you have to go over there and order». And the «mojito lemonade» I had wasn’t made for me there, he pointed to the cooler where I fished it out. And no, it wasn’t good.
All told, I had a tiny, tiny sandwich on thin hardtack like a sailor would have eaten in 1702, very greasy, thin chips, gritty clam chowder and a lackadaisical lemonade made like my mama don’t like me.
This place makes no sense. The setup is atrocious, and no doubt makes all the workers angry at life. And the food profiles are bland and meh. Take a pass, everyone. Nothing to see here.

Holy frig this place is amazing. Went here before my hair appointment last night and got a sandwich to go. The guys behind the counter were super friendly and greeted me right away. I went with the pesto chicken melt which came with chips or carrots. I also got a water and it was $ 10 out the door. The sandwich was made pretty quickly. It was soo good! The multigrain bread was crusty and flavorful. The chicken was perfectly tender with no weird bits inside. The pesto sauce and melty, gooey cheese were the perfect toppers for the sandwich! I ate it all in about 30 seconds lol. But it was seriously delicious. So delicious, in fact, that I am contemplating going back tonight!

I’m kind of shocked reading the other reviews on here. I frequent this Cosi since it’s near the Palladium — I’m actually going there tonight before a movie as well — and although the service is occasionally slow (and I eat during the lunch period, so it’s grab your own food once it’s ready), the food is exceptionally good. Someone else mentioned the Lite sandwiches — I get the Chicken TBM lite for about 520 calories, and take the chips home to eat w/​lunch the next day (or get the carrots if I want something then and there).
The tables/​bathrooms are always clean as well, and I’ve never had problems with the staff.