Oscar W.
Yelp
You will likely be familiar with the tale of the fox and the scorpion. The fox, arriving at a great and mighty river, thought to himself "I'd like to swim across this river." But a scorpion caught the fox's attention, evidently looking for a lift. "I'm not bringing you, you're a scorpion." said the fox, cunning as ever. "So what?" replied the scorpion. "Well, you'll sting me." said the fox. "Don't worry about it." replied the scorpion. The fox calculates that the scorpion will not sting him. After all, he'd be killing himself as well as the fox. Because of the drowning. Halfway across the river, the scorpion, astride the fox, strikes. The fox apparently had time to ask "what the fuck?" to which the scorpion replied, "I can't help it. It's my nature."
Now I know what you're thinking. In this strained metaphor, I am the fox and Bloomington Bagel Company's Dunn Street Location is the scorpion. But you'd be wrong. In this strained metaphor, Bloomington Bagel Company's Dunn Street Location is actually the river: it takes forever to get out once you're in it, It constantly changes and yet remains ever the same, and the chances of your demise are extremely high. I guess what I'm trying to say is that my experiences at this restaurant resemble the experience of drowning because of a scorpion sting.
Over the course of the last several years, I have found myself at BBC on more than a few occasions, largely because there is an inexplicable dearth of breakfast sandwich options in the area. But no more. From now on, if I am faced with the option of getting a papercut at the apex of the little 'V' that forms between two adjacent fingers and patronizing BBC, I will choose the papercut every time.
Maybe I am the scorpion. "Oh the place is unspeakably lousy each and every time you go but you keep going back anyway?" I can't help it. It's my nature. Said the grouchy Prussian leader, Otto Von Bismarck, ""Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others." Neither man, however, will learn anything whatever by patronizing BBC, except perhaps for a lesson in self-respect. But in the hopes of sparing you such a lesson, allow me to be unequivocal: Bloomington Bagel Company's Dunn Street location is, in my opinion, an unmitigated disgrace.
The food is consistently insipid, which means that there is no excuse for this establishment's other rampant shortcomings. The prices are preposterous. You can expect to pay upwards of eight dollars for a bagel with an egg and a piece of bacon on it. The work flow design is reminiscent of that board game with the Rube Goldberg plastic machine whereby a marble rolls around triggering the eventual capture of a mouse. Mousetrap, I think it is called. As a result, you can expect to wait fifteen or so minutes for the privilege of overpaying for bad food. Your order will be wrong. Every time. That's a given. Don't come in expecting to receive what you ask and pay for. I actually got a good chuckle out of that idea.
But what makes this place world class in terms of having no class is the staff. River-like, the staff is ever changing. That's usually a sign that either (a) it is a terrible place to work, so people keep quitting, or (b) whoever is doing the hiring isn't properly vetting candidates, and has to fire them once it becomes obvious that they are very bad at what they've been hired to do. But they are always the same in the sense that they really do the owner, to say nothing of the customers, a disservice. In my considerable experience, they're slow to greet, slow to prepare the food, disorganized, self-absorbed, frequently on their phones, and apparently without any direction with respect to the correct order of operations.
I am saddened to express these opinions and share these experiences. Ordinarily I am prompted to post a review only when I have had an experience that is amusingly bad. I recall, many years ago, enjoying BBC. I know that they purport to be active in the community. But they appear to have lost their way, and, more importantly, their standards. Henceforth I will avoid this establishment, and I advise that you do the same.