Bagel Street Café

First of all, I’m no bagel expert and I don’t claim to be, but I’ve had a good bagel or two on both sides of the pond and the Bagel Street bagel didn’t roll.
I was just looking for a quiet place to have a coffee and get some work done and Bagel Street seemed all that, plus bagels. The bagel there was 75kr, but I’ve had amazing bagels in Stockholm before, (Bagel Deli down by Fridhemsplan has AMAZING bagels) so I was ready to invest. So I ordered the french turkey bagel (turkey and dijon mustard) and checked out the upstairs seating.
They were trying to go with some sort of cozy, homely atmosphere by filling the place with second hand furniture and a bunch of weird retro radios, TVs, lamps, tables and chairs. It MIGHT have worked, except the place was really dirty. Food stains on the seating, dust in the corners and tables (some ageing, almost waterlogged) left unwiped. Plus, the lighting was eerily dim. None of the second hand reading lamps placed by the tables worked. One even seemed abused, with the lightbulb attached but hanging out by its wiring like a scene out of Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence.
The ceiling-​mounted air conditioning added auditory reinforcement to the creep factor. It rattled and squeaked nonstop. It was a beast of an AC, but didn’t really seem to give much output. The whole place had a sort of artificial display atmosphere you get walking through a museum exhibition.
The bagel was really pretty sad. It was lettuce, tomatoes, onions, cucumber, philadelphia cheese, one thick turkey slice (!), and a few clicks of the promised dijon mustard. In other words it was a burger sandwich. A bagel burger. A burgel. For 75kr I certainly felt burgled.
It wasn’t wrapped, it was placed on a plate and served. The lettuce was wet and dripped. It truly lacked panache, it lacked feeling. It felt like a Swedish sandwich with bagel bread, which would have been fine, if they hadn’t deliberately duped me into expecting a palpable bagel experience with the 75kr price.
I’ve heard that Bagel Street Cafés in other locations around stockholm are actually pretty good, and I’ve seen some pics of proper bagels that seem promising (they were wrapped…). It’s sad that this one, at such a grand location on the street of the king should fall short.