The Bagelry

«On a garlic bagel, I would like a lox and bagel and a large cup of coffee.»
The homely looking girl at the cash register, the chunky one with blue hair and a hog type nose ring starts huffin and puffin.
With attitude, she starts questioning my order, as if I had no idea what I am talking about. She wants to make this difficult for everyone, or she has never worked at a bagel shop before.
«Cream cheese, lox, tomato, and onions please.»
The tall young man at the counter then chimes in with an elevated tone in his voice is pointing at different items on the menu with his knife. I wasn’t interested on what his take on a lox and bagel was, he just needed to stay quiet and point his nose toward the cutting board.
It wasn’t until a third bagel worker came up to the counter before progress was happening. She was able to make me what I ordered.
Even tho The Bagelry isn’t my favorite bagel shop, I have visited many, many times before. I order the same thing every time and never ever had a problem before.
The employees here need more training. The difficult ones with the bad attitudes need to hit the road.
Thank you.

Just moved here, had to have a bagel and lox. Great People, bagel was awesome. Loved the juice selection.

I LOVE a good smoked salmon bagel, and this is the great place to get one in Santa Cruz.
I work downtown so I’m use to going to the location there, but this one isn’t bad. Service-​wise, I feel like this one is lacking… Every time I’ve been here, the people behind the counter don’t seem to care much about anything.
Food-​wise, I always get either the lox and cream cheese or lox deluxe. Both have smoked salmon, green/​red onions, and cream cheese. Deluxe has tomatoes and capers (and is $ 0.80 more).
The cream cheese is very light, and they pile it on! Every time I ask for less cream cheese I always end up scraping a bunch off… Which is great if you love cream cheese. The smoked salmon is alright — wish it was thinner and had more of a smokey flavor, but it’s not bad.
And what bagel should I get, you ask? GARLIC. Forever and always: garlic. It goes great with the lox, and I love the bits of crunchy garlic sprinkled on top. Mm…
It might not be the best bagel EVER, but it’s a great place to go to if you’re craving a good bagel sandwich!

Not sure what’s up with the bad reviews. Bagels are tasty and their coffee is actually pretty good.

You kidding me? What is with these Santa Cruz café places charging stupid money for CRAPPY food!!! I get a lox bagel $ 10 and its piled with tomatoes and capers. The lox was salty as hell! My bagel wasn’t even toasted!!! Not to mention ur buying a bagel that is half the size of any bagel I e ever seen at double the cost. As well as the people in this place! Not the workers but the people who hang out in there are a bunch of rude stuck up a$$holes. I’m never going back there again. Waste of money and time.

This review goes out to the tall white lanky guy taking my order this morning at this joint. Get a personality and stop being so damn blah and rude to people. So I come in this morning with my child and was half a s s greeted by this guy who looked like it hurt to even say hello. WTH? He was rude through the whole transaction. I gave The Bagelry a second chance having had tried their Cedar store before. Now this Soquel store blows too! I ordered 2 bagels and totally they are whatever. Even more bogus was the guy at the forefront of this store this morning. I really didn’t need his BS on a Mon morning. If you hate your job dude go somewhere else your costing people business. I won’t be back.

I have been a long standing customer… since before time… certainly before my server was born… the woman who took my order was great. I knew what I wanted and she entered it into the computer without batting an eye. My one bagle came to $ 4.90. I gave her a $ 5 and dug into my purse for over $ 1.50 in tip… jokingly saying I won’t give you the penny I also dug out… a penny would be rude… we both laughed… then another clerk got confused and tried to hand me someone else’s order… I said it wasn’t mine… she initially insisted it was… then the order taking clerk straightened it all out… still no real issue… until my food finally came. Now I understand portion control and all I catered for years… however I paid extra for extra and did not get it. Didn’t really complain except that I asked for more tomatoe. Today they were using unusually small tomatoes. He insisted on charging me for more tomatoes… and then argued with me. I gave him the money and insisted that the tomatoes were too small and that I shouldn’t be charged. He said we only give two… and oh well that is the size today…
He ruined my bagel indulgence… RUINED IT!

It’s against the law to refuse entry of service dogs into your establishment. Look it up and educate yourselves.

I come here allot on Sat. mornings to get a dozen or more bagels for my friends at Ocean Honda. The bagels are always fresh and great. The schmeres are awesome. I love the Date and Walnut schmere. The staff is friendly. There’s always a line, so that has to tell you something! Their bagel sandwiches and fresh soups are a great alternative for lunch!

I was greeted by a line of 20 or so people on a Saturday afternoon at this establishment. Speaking with the regulars, this is common. Yes, the bagels are delicious and the line is very deserving. So you may be asking yourself, why am I only giving this place 2 stars?
Well, if you watch what goes on behind the cash register, you’ll quickly realize two things: 1) if there was some work flow management, the line would be unnecessary and 2) THIS ESTABLISHMENT VIOLATES FOOD CODE.
I even wrote this place a letter outlining these issues and the response I received was «well, it’s too difficult (with customizations) for us to figure out a way to serve you faster and ensure our employees do the bare minimum and wash their hands… so we’re keeping things they way they are.»
You see, when you walk up to the cash register, the person there takes your order and then goes and makes your food. Which the benefit is, if you ordered some super customized thing, you’re more likely to get it customized exactly the way you want it. That’s the ONLY advantage. The disadvantageS (which there are many) are as follows:
1) the customer waits longer because there is not a division of tasks allowing the line to be moved through quicker since people are always changing tasks
2) it is dangerous for the employees because they are always bumping into each other and there are hazardous items on the line (sharp knives, toaster oven, potential for slips and spills)
3) this means that the person who just handled DIRTY MONEY is now making your food with their DIRTY HANDS. Yes, there is a hand washing sink behind the wall next to the register. Yes, *some* employees wash their hands in between using the registers and handling food. But I guarantee you, if you watch closely, not every employee does this. I witnessed several employees go straight from cash handling duties to food handling duties. Now you may say to yourself, but some of them are wearing gloves. According to the state and federal food code, one must wash his/​her hands before putting on gloves. Simply wearing gloves is NOT sufficient.
4) even if every employee was washing their hands, the food code specifies how long one should wash and the technique used. The fact that this establishment thinks that this happens is just laughable… in fact, I never witnessed any employee stay behind that wall for more than 20 – 30 seconds, which means they are not properly washing their hands. If only they had dedicated people working the food line and dedicated people working the cash registers, their employees wouldn’t need to wash their hands every 4 minutes (which is an advantage to the employee. As someone who has worked in food service, your hands get incredibly dry because you are washing frequently throughout the day. Imagine having to do that 5x more often because of a bad work flow!)
And seriously, the excuse I was given as to why the work flow method this place uses is laughable. I don’t know about you, but I would rather have a less-​than-​perfect customized order than get sick. On top of that, in my letter I outlined (to great detail) how splitting the work flow would speed service and eliminate food code violations… how do I know all these things? Because I organized the work flow processes for a deli I operated – which offers a much higher level of customization for orders (the deli I used to run offered 30 different cheese options alone. Yeah, it’s just lazy to say you can’t customize right if the person who took the order doesn’t make the order).
And well, I honestly tried. I gave the business a chance by writing a letter before writing this review. I even went back after getting the response, figuring that I can put up with the long wait as long as my food was prepared safety… but unfortunately the lack of 100% compliance on hand washing is still an issue. You’d figured at least that would have gotten cleaned up (pun intended). Given the response I received and the lack of correction on the major issue, I see no choice but to now inform you that this place is willing to make you wait unnecessarily longer… and is unwilling to ensure your food safety.
So I implore you to also ask for better, safer service next time you visit this place. You as a customer should demand better! Instead of having one person complete your order from start to finish, there should be dedicated cashiers, dedicated bagel line workers, and an expediter. Cashiers ring you up and get you coffee, bagel line makes your food, expediter gets you your food when it done (and verified your order to make sure the customizations were done right). A ticket system (hey, maybe stickers that can be used to wrap your bagel!) can be used to write down customizations. Trust me, it works.
The bagels really are delicious. The smears are really great. Had I not had to wait 20 minutes to even place my order (and then witnessed glaring food and employee safety issues), this would have been a 5 star review.

They make the best hummus here! Our favorite in town. Service can be awkward, usually just get the hummus and split.

Not the best first experience. Bagelry employees were dragging and scuffling feet with 3 people working and a line 6 deep, which they did not even make an attempt to acknowledge. After a few minutes with only 1 transaction of progress, I walked out.
The menu looked pretty appealing, but the reason I came was in hopes of finding a good, boiled bagel, NY style. The bagels may be boiled, but by the look and feel of the day olds, it wasn’t enough to keep me standing in line. The staff had no appreciation for the fact I’m giving the money that ultimately goes to them having a job. My job is also at the mercy of the customer, so maybe that’s why it was so painful to experience on the other side.

I wonder if the owner should just staff 1 less person so maybe they actually feel the pressure and work harder. They’re obviously not working fast enough to bring enough revenue in to pay for the 3 of them to putz around like they’re too cool to care about their job anyways. That may have been a run on sentence, but it was worth it.
Only part that was nice with the experience was seeing 1 of them give a cup of water for some guy’s dog. Who knows– maybe with a different staff or a different day it would be a better experience.

This place is awesome! They have such a wide variety of bagels and cream cheese to choose from. I love it! Service is great and speedy. Definitely a returning customer!

I like the atmosphere. Good service. Decent egg sandwiches. They use a microwave to cook their eggs but it’s okay. This place basically gets the job done well enough to go back. I favor women that are all tattoo’d up so there MAY be a bit of heavy bias with my recommendation, but I am probably not too far off.

My favorite breakfast spot! I recommend Onion bagels with the tuna salad and green onions. Yum. Docked a star because it is a little pricey, but I learned to buy day Olds and the half pints. Becomes a bit more affordable that way, but you have to eat 6 bagels before the tuna goes bad.

I LOVE THEIR BAGELS. Plus the staff is pretty great. They’re generous with the cream cheese and I’m never disappointed!!!

The Bagelry represents how awesome Santa Cruz is. Making excellent bagels and toppings for 30 years is no easy feat. Bagel places come and go. This one has weathered earthquakes economic down turns and held its own against the chain bagel businesses. Offering gluten free too. Always good. A bagel you can count on. I have likely eaten here over 100 times in the last 30 years and have never had a bad experience.

They have really good bagels. Their service is good, but it can get busy so be prepared to stand in line. They don’t take credit cards but they have a little atm in the corner.

Lots of variety and the staff is really friendly. Have fun mixing and matching the bagels and toppings.

Stopped in yesterday morning for breakfast. I had a plain bagel with raspberry cream cheese. It was delicious and fresh. The only reason I am giving 4 stars instead of 5 is that the service was kinda rude and I felt sorta uncomfortable being there. Anyways, I’ll probably come back since the bagels were good.