Ithaca Bakery

Out of all of the college town bagels this was is by far the most disorganized and poorly run.
Only reason I come here is because it is close to my work and I just get soup cause it is already made and the staff can’t mess it up. My last encounter I waited 30 minutes for 2 salads that came out incorrectly…
The poor service is one thing but the menu is maybe a quarter of the size than the other locations. Probably a good thing though don’t want to confuse the staff too much…
New management should be considered

Usually not a bad meal but for some reason the Bronx breakfast sandwich was not up to par this morning. Bagel cold– not toasted, sausage and egg cold. Only thing hot was coffee.
Soooooo, discussed AM issues with management. Apologies accepted. For that 3 stars.

You pay too much for hard bread and a small amount of food. The wait for the food was almost as bad as having to eat it… Sorry, stay clear of this location.

My girlfriend and I went here for breakfast and she ordered a Brooklyn Bagel (bacon, egg, and cheese on a toasted bagel) and I ordered a Florentine Wrap (spinach tortilla, spinach, «scrambled egg», feta, mushrooms).
Her bagel came untoasted, and both of our «eggs» came in the form of an ugly yellow, gelatinous, rubber hockey puck. There’s no way that was a scrambled egg. The cheese and the bacon were fine though.
My wrap was entirely raw. Every ingredient (except the «egg» probably?) was uncooked. I know some people like raw mushrooms but it just did not mesh well with the cold egg puck and the rest of the chewy uncooked wrap. The feta was good, I ended up just picking out the feta and eating it.
We were just so incredibly disturbed by the egg patties. They didn’t taste the least like eggs which was especially disappointing given how much they advertised their «farm to fork» policy. I’m pretty sure those were out of a carton or a factory or something.
However, we did order an Aztec Winter Shake which we enjoyed a lot. Sweet with some spice, really pleasing.

Unlike the other reviews, I didn’t have any experiences with poor service but I was disappointed by the food quality of something that’s supposed to be an Ithaca classic.
I ordered a Tuscan Verde, a Toasted Cheese with Tomato & Bacon soup, and a chocolate-​hazelnut filled croissant.
1. Tuscan Verde — terrible sandwich, would not recommend to anyone. The chicken was dry and cold. Let in large chunks, pretty chalky and flavorless. The sandwich had no sense of togetherness and the tomatoes were the really firm and tasteless supermarket variety. The sandwich was lacking in moisture for sure. The focaccia was also unimpressive; nice texture but no real flavor of olive oil or any seasonings and not much a crust.
2. Toasted Cheese with Tomato & Bacon Soup — this was 5/​5, would get again. Not too cloying, decently cheesey. Definitely tasted like smoked gouda & bacon. Good with a dash of tabasco for acidity balance.
3. Chocolate-​Hazelnut Croissant — there was no offer to heat it so it was pretty cold when I got it. It is literally 90% air, and I don’t mean in a nicely layered way either, I mean there were a dozen layers and then a giant cavern with a really small bit of nutella (see my picture for what i mean. It didn’t taste that buttery, it did flake well though. Not much substance.

This place has ridiculously long waits for gross food. After waiting 20 minutes for our breakfast sandwiches, they finally came out and the egg looked like a disturbing yellow hockey puck on a lukewarm bagel. We would have been better off getting egg mcmuffins at McDonalds… we’d even get hashbrowns…

Sigh. I still occasionally eat here since there are so few lunch options in the area, and unfortunately my experience hasn’t changed. My most recent «vegetarian» sandwich had a piece of turkey stuck to the bottom — annoying for me, but a deal breaker to many other vegetarians. (I am OK with picking it off.)

Tons of options to choose from, with lots of fresh and tasty ingredients. I picked out my own and made a custom bagel sandwich (lox and cream cheese, red onion, capers, arugula on a long island bagel), and it came out exactly as I hoped. Delicious! Lots of great baked goods as well. The manager Nathan was helpful and friendly and made sure we had a great experience. We will definitely be back next time we’re in town!

Here are my PROS: The location is so convenient for those of us that don’t live downtown and it’s quite nice to go somewhere with a parking lot. The menu has terrific variety and the bakery case holds many, many goodies.
The CONS: As others have mentioned, the service isn’t great. It is amazing how uninterested and annoyed the cashiers seem. I don’t need the kind of skippy-​go-​lucky service offered by a smiley, bubbly person, but I also don’t like feeling that I’ve shown up uninvited to a private party when ordering a sandwich at a café. I also think the prices are slightly on the high side for what you get. If menu items cost a little less, I’d be more inclined to buy a dessert and a soda with my sandwich, but at $ 9 for the sandwich, I can’t justify getting anything else.

Way… way…way too expensive. $ 9 for a roast beef and cheese sandwich on rye bread with a can of soda.
I was expecting to get a giant roast beef sandwich with chips and got a very disappointing sized sandwich with no chips.
Not going back.

Quality food in a café/​bakery environment with many college student-​type staff. Lots of sandwich options including vegetarian fare. Clean and presentable. I just didn’t really get the knock-​your-​socks off feeling from this place… perhaps price-​performance ratio was lower than hoped. I think I would prefer Panera over this place but that should help you benchmark the food here.

This updated review is for their bagels and 2 sandwiches I’ve tried: the Parisian and Laura’s Sweet Surprise. My 2 star review still holds for the breakfast sandwiches, but I felt I needed to revise my review after thoroughly enjoying a pumpkin bagel with cinnamon sugar and Laura’s sweet surprise.

Just can’t get it right…
I’ve come to this location on more than ten occasions and they have yet to get my order right. I order a «huevos sonara on an open face onion bagel.» After paying a premium and normally waiting over 20min I receive a bagel with only cheese and salsa… without guacamole and egg… It’s called «huevos» for a reason. So I kindly send it back, and after waiting another 20min they return with a huevos sonara in a wrap… Again without guacamole. They have similarly messed up ten prior times. Hopefully you have better luck.

Pros: MANY vegetarian options & a few vegan ones, «outdoor» (in the mall) patio table seating — which is good for kids, tasty coffee with soymilk available (without asking — it’s just out with the milk & cream — awesome!), free cups for tap water, recycle/​compost station right at the trash.
Cons: the customer service here is… inconsistent and the staff comes across as often disinterested or annoyed. I’ve felt rushed in placing my order, or that I’m inconveniencing the staff. Also, the «flow» through this location is congested. The sandwich board isn’t easily visible from the order taking spot, the pastries are on the opposite side of the cold drink case, which is across the store from the coffee, same with the instant oatmeal & the hot water with which to prepare it. Prepared foods are in the front, but if you’re trying to look through that case, you’re in the way of customers trying to pick up their orders.
Overall: Order/​payment/​pickup counter needs more thoughtful planning, & customer service needs work.
Food options, taste, & environmental impact are great (& keep us coming back)

I’m not all that impressed. As others have mentioned, the service is uncharacteristically bad here. I’ll have to visit the other location to see if it’s different. The employees I came into contact with seemed very gruff, impatient, and possibly crossing the line into rude.
The one saving grace of Ithaca Bakery is that the baked goods are pretty tasty. The sandwiches are just OK, mostly because they don’t seem to be put together with much care. For example, I ordered a bagel breakfast sandwich. The bagel was excellent, but the egg was tasteless and the cheese was still cold. Long gone are the days when plain eggs beat and cooked makes scrambled eggs. I can get that at McDonald’s. Put a bit of thought and creativity into your menu items!

Yuck! What is this awful difference between Ithaca Bakery on Triphammer and the one downtown? Downtown is SO much better, I wouldn’t think they were even related.

I so liked this bakery that over the course of the weekend visit to Ithaca, I stopped 3 times.
1^st they serve awesome coffee, lattes, and expresso with 100% free trade Cayuga coffee.
2^nd there bagels have substance and are not those fluffy versions from Panera or Einstein’s.
3^rd they have a nice breakfast buffet selection that you can purchase by weight and service is so friendly.
4^th, I like how the compost, recycle and trash waste and all their containers are compost-​able.

This is a long overdue review of catering which Ithaca Bakery handled for my grandfather’s 100^th birthday celebration last October. We had a great experience with Ithaca Bakery, though there were some rough patches at the start of us working together. Once I got to work with Niki, however, everything improved. She was extremely helpful as I worked to arrange catering for a party in Watkins Glen all the way from Oakland, CA. We had a few issues come up late in our planning, and Niki was really helpful in finding creative ways to make everything work. Our server was excellent and really made the event itself go smoothly.
And then there was the food! We had a very simple menu of sandwiches and salads, veggie trays, cookies and cakes, perfect for the everyone from the most basic palettes of the young kids (I won’t eat anything but white bread) to the most foodie of our guests. The fresh bakery breads were delicious, and we had to ration cake servings – not because there wasn’t enough, but because the cakes were so good we had folks returning for thirds and fourths!
I would recommend Ithaca Bakery for anyone in the Ithaca area wanting to cater their next event.

Food was good. Service was not.
I ordered a breakfast egg wrap but the waiter thought I ordered a different sandwich. After explaining the mix up, he refused to bring me the right order. I was not impressed.

This new location of Ithaca Bakery is in the spot inhabited by Hope’s Way bakery and catering for the last several years. This change of hands has only gone down in the past several months — not sure what happened to Hope or her Way.
This place is close to being awesome. They have a great display case of delicious cakes, baked goods, prepared salads, and tasty meals. They have a great menu of soups and sandwiches as well and did a really brisk lunch business while we were there. My lady and I both ordered the soup — i thought the chicken tortellini was well seasoned and hearty; she thought the potato leek was over-​peppered and too smooth.
The main opportunity for improvement is the ordering process. When you go in the front door, they take orders to the right, then you take your check back through the line, around the case and pay by the coffee station. This is incredibly confusing — we must have heard them explain to at least 5 – 6 people just in the 10 minutes we were waiting how to place their order — it is not intuitive or set up efficiently at all. On top of that, the beverage case is about 15 feet from the registers and if you want a juice or soda you either have to hold everyone up and walk over or just kind of point and gesture.
If they put up some good signs and straightened out the ordering process, Ithaca Bakery would make a great, tasty lunch spot!