Our welcome to Beach Bagels (Sat Aug 3, 2024) was a member of staff shouting at customers to line up from the left and not the right, then another screaming at those coming in for holding the door open and muttering under her breath: “Jesus Christ, how many times?!”
It made us wonder why they didn’t have a sign/standee near the door pointing this out to customers to save the constant conflict?
As our time at Old Orchard Beach progressed, this kind of attitude from some of the workers towards tourists was typical: it was like they hated us but had to tolerate us.
As we got closer to entering the store, we noticed signage on the window saying that they used products from Boar’s Head, as the wild boar logo caught our eye. This made us raise our eyebrows as Boar’s Head had been all over the national news networks owing to a listeria outbreak and a massive product recall following several deaths. It didn’t deter us, however, from going in.
Beach Bagels was as busy inside as out, and the few tables were taken. They had an efficient system for serving customers - like a production line, you placed your order then proceeded to pay then move on to collection at the very end.
The system was that slick, when our name was called we collected our drinks and bag of bagels, took them outside to enjoy as we travelled to Portland only to discover we’d been given the wrong order! 50% wrong to be exact. So much for a slick system!
Lining up to being served took 30 minutes, so there was no way we were walking back to go through the “production line” and be “shouted out” for not being psychic and knowing their little foibles with the door and preference of where the line should go on the public street. Instead, we decided to tuck into the food we had before it got cold and we missed our bus outta “Angry Old Orchard” for a nice day at Portland.
We had ordered and paid for:
🥯❌ Plain bagel with sausage, egg and cheese = $5.59
🥯❌ Plain bagel with bacon, sausage, egg and cheese = $5.59 + whatever extra filling cost*
🥤 Iced latte (small) = $4.49
☕️ Hot cafe latte (small) = $3.59
😢 Maine Sales Tax (6%) = $Unknown*
💰 Total = $24.40
* No receipt was given and we suspect we were overcharged for the items we didn’t actually receive.
We were actually served a sesame seeded bagel with the fillings missing; it was toasted and smothered in butter and incidentally tasted great!
The other bagel, with its bacon, egg and cheese but no sign of the sausage, was tasty too, though the fillings were rather sparse.
We were excited for Beach Bagels but it was a let down: the fresh bagels were great, the fillings and order accuracy were poor, and the overall customer service was dire. Consequently we went elsewhere for breakfast the next morning.
📌 BEACH BAGELS
34 Old Orchard St., Old Orchard Beach, ME 04064
🌐 oldorchardbeachmaine.com
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