Irving’s

I am a frequent customer at Irving’s and had a bad experience yesterday. While waiting for my breakfast sandwich, I was sitting at one of the small circle hightop tables parallel to the kitchen. I heard one of the male employees in the kitchen say, «Can someone throw these shitty green eggs in the trash?» Because I heard this, I checked my breakfast sandwich once I got it and sure enough the eggs were greenish and discolored. I brought it up to the male employee and told him that I would not have even checked if I had not heard him say what he did. Instead of immediately taking my sandwich and remaking it (which he eventually did but I’m pretty sure used the same bagel), he almost argued with me about it although the customer is always right in food service. His response to the eggs on my breakfast sandwich was, «the eggs I used on yours weren’t THAT green.»
My point in writing this review is to explains that eggs your serving to customers should not even be partially green. I think that they need to go over proper procedures with their employees because this was not acceptable.

Irving’s is good, but the food isn’t anything too special. The atmosphere is a good spot around campus to get some work done at — they also have tables and benches downstairs which can be quite a comfy spot. It gets busy really quickly & weekends can be crazy there. If you see the line is long, try not to order anything hot because it’ll take you a while to get it.
The food isn’t the cheapest but the bacon, egg, and cheese on a bagel is reasonably priced for the amount you get. The coffee is good. There’s usually some special flavor each day, in addition to their regular flavor. One little thing I love about Irving’s is their basket full of Frank’s red hot packets. I had never seen any place before that has had that before.

Irvings is the place to go for your stereotypical college kid. Coffee Salads Egg and Cheese Bagels. They also have a good selection of sandwiches, wraps, baked goods, and smoothies.
The space is very open with a warehouse feel. There will be a lot of students just hanging around studying which can be annoying if there’s limited seating left. The atmosphere is certainly a nice place to be.
I had the Reuben when I went. The taste was spot on. Corned beef was thick slices of brisket and not the thinly sliced deli stuff. Although the size was a little underwhelming. I also would have expected it to be served with chips or something else for charging $ 7 but it just came with a dill pickle slice.
The service is also okay. I’ve never had a problem but they can be a little slow at times especially if it is busy. You mind as well just go sit down to wait.
If you’re looking for a quick bite or cup of coffee, I wouldn’t recommend because is can be pricy and a little slow. But if you are meeting someone for breakfast or lunch or just want a place to hang out for awhile it’s not a bad spot. If I could, I would give it a 3.5÷5.

I absolutely love Irvings. I have never had a bad experience here. I prefer the breakfast sandwiches (served all day unlike many other sandwich shops/​bakeries), but I have been there many times with people who have ordered other food items and they are always happy. The prices are decent and the people watching is great because it is always so busy! If you happen to be in downtown State College, skip the chain quick service restaurant and definitely go here!

Not impressed. In fact, downright insulted by this place. The hype and name behind Irving’s is overly inflated, that’s for sure.
Slow service: there are more customers than their process can handle. I visited before lunch (11:20am) on a Tuesday, so there’s no excuse for this. It was busy, and three people in line ahead of me to place orders, but no where near packed. It’s like the other small name bagel joints downtown: filled with students and no real locals (because locals probably know to avoid this place).
No real place to sit, either, since students have taken over all of the tables to sit there for hours and study or hang out. Since Irving’s probably doesn’t want to police it, they’ll lose customers from the locals. That’s the only reason this place survives as it does: new students each year, since it’s a statistical fact that student taste buds enjoy all sorts of crap, no matter how pathetic that crap tastes. On an unrelated note: I was assaulted by the smoky smell of burnt food as I entered. I guess the staff is clumsy in preparing toasted items, since obviously some of that food was dropped on an element somewhere.
Confusing, awkward service. When you enter, there is no clear definition of where to order at first glance. People waiting on both sides of a center island. It was my first time here, so had to ask someone standing around if they were ordering or picking up. Then, if you get your food to go, they just throw it in a box. No bag, no utensils, no napkins, just a box. So you have to search for all of these things, and of course you’d have to ask for a bag. Doing so when they’re busy is a headache. To make things worse, they don’t coordinate their prepared drinks (specialty coffees & smoothies) with their prepared food at all. So your food may be sitting around and getting cold, while you’re still waiting for your prepared drink. I was lucky to get mine only a couple minutes apart, but one woman ahead of me got her toasted bagel, then waited for may be 15 minutes until her coffee was ready. Pathetic. Get your act together, Irving’s.
Good menu, plenty of selection for a bagel joint. Concise descriptions of each item. Fair prices on some items, then expensive for others. So a bagel with Jelly is $ 1.50, but if you add Peanut Butter and Jelly it jumps to $ 4.25? You could almost get three bagels with jelly for that price. I could bring my own jar of PB and still come out cheaper than that. Retarded.
Food is tasteless. This place sells fresh food, but they have no idea what salt or spices are, because the bagels are just as bland as the regular menu items I ordered. I got an SOB (Strawberry, Orange Juice, Banana smoothie) and a Pizza Bagel with Pepperoni. The SOB was fairly bland and had a green/​bitter aftertaste, and I know exactly why: I saw the person prepare it with a green, unripened banana. Yuck. You *NEVER* use green bananas in anything like a smoothie or dessert dishes. You use ripe bananas, and even over-​ripe is fine. The Pizza Bagel was also bland. I couldn’t taste anything from the cheese, the pepperoni was cheap, processed, bulk pepperoni, and the «pizza sauce» was really tasteless, cheap, bulk spaghetti sauce with no seasoning. A waste of $ 9-​something for this lunch.
Bagels are equally bland: hardly any salt in their dough, and whatever flour they use it’s low-​quality, bulk crap with no real flavor of its own either. The only thing that distinguishes a plain bagel from any other type of bagel is the frugal amount of equally flavorless flakes they sprinkle on top. Perhaps the only exceptions would be Blueberry or Cinnamon Raisin bagels. And no interesting bagels either: no Asiago, no Whole Grain, no equivalent to a Cinnamon Crunch, and no seasonal bagels. Just boring. If their bagels were at least somewhat good, I’d give another star or two. This is supposed to a «Bagel» shop, yet this core business is a total failure.
I won’t be returning to Irving’s.

Every just loves irvings. I usually steered clear, but it’s hard when all of your friends want to grab lunch here. It’s overpriced.
Food:
Lox and cream cheese on a bagel– good. Decent amount of lox. Also came with tomato cucumber and onion, from what I recall. It was worth the price.
Reuben– pretty average. It came with a small pickle. The meat was okay, but the bread wasn’t great.
I’ve also had a few of their drinks, which were really delicious. Anything with chocolate in it.
The wait time for your order is a bit too long. Maybe hire more workers?

Stopped in for a bite to eat. Lunch time but decided to have a breakfast bagel. The bagel was good, the sandwich is OK. The place was load, crowded and kayotic but not a bad place for an inexpensive lunch, breakfast or a bagel.
Even thou crowded, out sandwiches came out in a reasonable amount of time.
The best item was the yogurt… try it you will love it.

I got the peanut butter banana wrap and the warm apple cider. The wrap wasn’t anything fantastic, but if you’re craving peanut butter with some lovely candied walnuts, you’ve got a winner. The apple cider was nice and hot — a little too sweet for my liking, but still delicious. My meal was less than $ 7, and my belly was more than full. Great brunch place.

I wish Irving’s would work to improve their restaurant instead of falling into complacency. I have been going to Irving’s every now and then for the past two years, and it’s always been the same deal — somewhat busy, decent but expensive and low portioned food, slow service with an overabundance of workers the majority of whom seem to just be standing around while a few are working their tails off.
Their smoothies are great, bagels probably the best in State College, and it seems like they do a killing in their catering business. If they could just improve their service times by enforcing productivity in their employees and increase their portions by maybe 25% to give guests the feeling that they are getting what they paid for (at least $ 10 for a sandwich and drink), they could become a State College staple as opposed to just a place you go to in passing.

Honestly Irving’s was kind of… eh. The menu is basic sandwiches, salads, and sides. Honestly the best part about the shop is their drinks (particularly their smoothies). Try the very berry or the green smoothie.

I like to support local business, but the bagels are just too dense and chewy. The coffee is nothing special, very weak. I like the atmosphere for work and writing, but the bagels themselves are just not that good. I prefer their salad place down the street.

I would actually rate this place more of a 3.5
Pretty cool concept of bagel sandwiches. Havent really seen too many of those around. You can also choose any bagel u want when u order the sandwich, and they have a bunch of options.
Execution wise everything tasted pretty good/​solid.
The reason why this joint isnt a 4 is the price is a lil heavy for the amount of food ur getting.
Some sandwiches are like 7 bucks. The bagels were around 4 – 5. I could see everthing goin for bout a dollar less in my opinion.
Pizza bagel ($ 4.25 + .$ 75 for pepperoni) — Reminded me of a big bagel bite. Obviously it was much better than a bagel bite… very cheesy which is good and good amount of pepperonis. You hafta add pepperonis for an extra 75 cents. It was pretty good but I dont think i’d get it again.
Breakfast special ($ 3.99 + $.50 for each additional item) — I got this with Canadian bacon which is ham lol. I also got it with tomato of which I dont think I got any…(I didnt remember i got tomato till i started writing this… oh well). It was a good breakfast bagel… gooey and cheesy. Kinda wish the eggs were a lil runnier but I still enjoyed it.
Overall I enjoyed my food and Ill probably be back to try their other items.

Bagels are great. Breakfast sandwich on a bagel was good as well. Huge serving of Oatmeal, definitely enough to share. The space is large and clean. We went there 2 times in a week due to convenience and light, healthy breakfast options. Definitely recommend it if this menu is what you are looking for.

My far best place to go for a breakfast sandwich. For lunch the Baja chicken is a must!

The sandwiches were a bit small for the price. I got the Sonoma Turkey and asked for it with no onions. They gave them to me anyway. No big deal. I can pull them off, but in the process the little Russian dressing on the sandwich came off with them. The sandwich ended up being pretty dry and not so enjoyable.
Our order did take quite some time to get with only one person in front of us. I will say that the guy at the register was very friendly and always smiling.

Great sandwiches, great coffee, and amazing bagels.
I’ve been eating the breakfast special at Irving’s for years! You can’t beat that. Can you? That’s right, you can’t. You can’t beat that. It’s what State College eats for breakfast.

Every college needs a great bagel spot… and Irving’s perfectly embodies that for State College. The large, bright space can easily accommodate a Saturday morning crowd (and a long line). JJ and I went early on a Saturday so he could introduce me to the place. We decided to split a bagel and salad. We both got coffee, too.
Bagels: the sausage, egg, and cheese (American) was so yummy that I ate my half immediately. This sandwich had cheese on both parts of the bagel, which made for extra goo and happiness on my part. The sausage and egg were exactly on point. They advertised using the old way to make bagels (boiled and baked) and the technique really showed – my bagel was soft inside with a little bit of chew and the outer part was also pleasantly chewy.
Salad: we got the fruit and nut salad, which had a creamy strawberry dressing that was served on the side, plenty of mixed greens, feta cheese, fruit, and walnuts. They really pack it in, so there was plenty for us both, but it was unfortunately served in a to-​go container, so it was really hard not to make a mess.
Coffee: served piping hot and we were both unable to drink it for at least ten minutes. I would have preferred to have been able to drink it with my meal, but it was good once it cooled down.
Irving’s really excels at the breakfast food and that’s when you should make it your priority to go, but it is open all day which makes it a nice place to stop for sandwiches and salads, plus milkshakes and smoothies.

Came here for a very early breakfast. I understand State College is a small town but it’s really hard to mess up breakfast. Irving’s dropped the ball on dominating breakfast despite being directly across from Penn State and having a huge dining area.
Ordered a bacon egg and cheese on rye. The egg tasted old and the cheese was comparable to being a slice of some cheap imitation of Kraft white american cheese. The bacon on the other hand was crunchy and was the only thing saving the sandwich from utter failure. Still their bacon, egg and cheese is far from delectable and memorable.
Now the thing about breakfast is that should you choose to eat out it’s either because you crave something special and can’t make it at home or pure convenience. Irving’s really lost this concept with the toasted bagel with butter we ordered. Do us a favor, please butter it!

Irving’s has delightful bagels. Irving’s is well designed, clean, and inviting. Irving’s can get some really long lines if you wait around.
Go early and check out the downstairs seating. Also good meeting space for college clubs. Owners are very friendly and accommodating.
Fa reelz Irving’s bagels are the bees knees!

Great breakfast or brunch joint. Everything
is organic and anything but ordinary. We really enjoy the bagel sandwiches, smoothies and unique coffee flavors. It’s a very cute bagel shop. I highly recommend the trip!