Not so schmancy (Other locations...)

Member Name: gollygumdrops

Product:	Other locations...
Date:	20/10/01 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: They sell tasty bagels

Disadvantages: Theres none locally

In the UK it is difficult to get decent bagels outside of London. This is a shame as I love the dense chewiness of fresh baked bagels, be they plain, sweet, savory, filled or plain. So whilst in the US I like to make the most of it.

My favorite bagel place was an independent place that folded after the Farmer Jacks supermarket next door closed and killed off the block. In my search for a replacement I tried a few chains, and Einstein Bros rated pretty highly.

Einstein Bros is part of the Einstein - Noah Bagel Corporation in Golden, Colorado, a town better known for bringing you Coors beer, which by the way, I'm still boycotting if you are interested.

My routine is simple. I like breakfast, including coffee, served quickly, and then I like to sit by a window, read the paper and ease myself into the day.

The morning crush at Einsteins counts against it as there is often a queue, but it moves quickly as they tend to be well staffed and organised with a single queue system so you don't get stuck behind someone feeding the five thousand whilst the next server deals with seventeen customers.

There do tend to be a lot of big orders from people buying breakfast for the office. A box of a dozen, with plenty of cream cheese comes in at $9.99 so you can afford to be reasonably generous and mix the flavours. Don't be fooled into adding coffee to the bulk order if you can help it as this more than doubles the cost. Most folk would rather have extra nosh and settle for machine coffee.

Continuing on the generous line, they also offer boxed sandwich lunches for ten (but not, sadly, in bagels), at around forty bucks.

Enough of this kind hearted sharing, I'm only interested in me and my breakfast, brunch, lunch combo. Aside from a wide range of flavored bagels, including pepper potato, blueberry, potato and jalepeno, they also offer 'shmears', thats cream cheese spreads to me and you. Lets f
ace it, bagels are a very efficient cream cheese delivery system.

For breakfast you can either take your bagel as it comes, or opt for the really rather tasty option of having your choice of bagel filled with scrambled egg and spring onions.

The coffee is good, and available in a few flavours. It's called Melvyns coffee, but I don't know why. If you're eating in it's self serve, and you can drink as much as your bladder will allow for the price of one cup. As you're staying for extra coffee, make the most of those free refills as I do and pig out on cinnamon buns. Muffins, cookies and other sweet baked goods are available.

At lunchtimes salads and sandwiches are available, but that's not what I come to a bagel shop for.

The stores are all pretty much the same, laid out to look like they've been there for years and the furniture has been brought to the store from home, or bought from a school yard sale. Despite the corny fakery I still find it a quite relaxed and enjoyable place to people watch as I eat.

Clientele ranges from harassed families who tend to be in the minority, through suits on their way somewhere in a hurry to a fair smattering of folks firing up their laptops and settling in for a while.

Whilst the food at Einstein Bros is not as good as the local independent bakeries within a reasonable drive, it does compare well with other bagel chains, and certainly outshines the burger places and most of the donut outlets around.

Summary: