Kiva’s Bagel Bar

I’ve come here many times, mostly for the avocado salad, which is delicious and very filling, with a Tex-​Mex feel. I’ve also gotten a very heavy cheese-​filled pastry whose name I can’t recall. I once tried to get one of the «all day» breakfast sandwiches at lunchtime. I was told that there would be a 10-​minute wait for the egg on a bagel, but that I could get anything else without waiting. I switched to tuna with capers, which was fine. But if I had known that the tuna would cost twice as much ($ 8 vs $ 4), I might have waited.

Flat bagels all dressed are wonderful, and they slice them so thet fit in the toaster. In fact all their bagels are great as is their cream cheese. But get there before 11 – the flats sell out fast. Good, efficient staff.

I am a regular and I enjoy their bagels + the service is friendly. I am particularly fond of the flat variety and love that they a decent amount of cream cheese without over doing it. Also – nice to get capers.
On a good day they remember how I like my coffee and everything goes swimmingly. Sometimes though, the coffee order gets mixed up which leaves me with cream – not milk. Most of the time, I will go back and they replace it easily enough.
Bottom line: love the bagels, order the sweets, but double check your coffee orders.

Reading over previous reviews, I noticed a pattern: they get better over time — significantly so.
I remember when Kiva’s first opened a few years ago. Service was clumsy (not knowing what to put on a specific sandwich, taking a long time to butter a simple bagel, etc.) and they ran out of bagels a few times.
But they quickly shifted gears and smoothed out any initial hiccups. Today, you can walk in during the morning or lunch rush and watch them churn out 20 bagel sandwiches in 5 minutes.
They will regularly drop in complimentary rugalahs into your lunch bag, are generous with portions and toppings and make, yes, the best bagels in the city.

I have been here a few more times since this first visit. I have to change my review. The service is great and the food is very good. I’ve been eating the breakfast sandwiches which are priced right and generous in portions. Check it out if you are in the area.

I went to the new branch of Kiva’s on Yonge Street near Eglinton Avenue. Just returned on Sunday night from a month in Asia and was really craving a bagel with some cheese blintzes on the side. Friendly assistance in store, well laid out, good selection of bagels, pastries were of a good quality. Shall try the sugar-​free blintzes next time — the one’s I purchased were delicious but a bit too sweet for my taste. Bagels there are good — I particularly like the oat bagels.

Kiva’s has been a regular stop for me and my family whenever we visit Toronto. The brothers who run it are as friendly and as welcoming as could be and treat everyone like they are VIPs. The food is always fresh and delicious. My kids love it and never let us leave town before stopping in for at least one breakfast or lunch. Great bagels. Great food. Great service. What more can you ask for?

Can’t get enough!!! Every time I come in, the people remember me and treat me like family. I often order the same omelette (goats cheese, onions and avocado!) that comes with a soft warm bagel. It really is comfort food for me, and I have loved everything I’ve ordered there. Not to mention, picking up a dozen bagels is so easy when I walk the dog because they have a window that opens to the street and lets me stand outside and order! My family and friends all come here frequently and we always leave happy!

Best Bagel Café & Pastry. Mid-​Town Toronto
(15 Saint Clair Avenue W) A 2 minute walk west of Yonge Street. South Side.
I think this is the perfect café spot for anyone seeking a healthy lunch to satisfy their appetite or just wanting an espresso perhaps with something sweet while on the go.
Its a casual friendly environment, has a seating area and its classy inside (decorated quite cute).& comfortable. The café has Wi-​fi available which is helpful too.
They have a wonderful variety of fresh baked bagels and breads, including gluten free bagels, breakfast options, tuna, chopped egg, smoked salmon with cream cheese.
Avocado and other veggies for the sandwiches & sides, everything looked and tasted so delirious and fresh.
There is no other place like this mid-​town Toronto, so I highly recommend you go to Kiva’s next time you find yourself seeking something extra-​special to tantalize your taste buds check this café out for yourself.
There is also a north end location at Bathurst & Steeles, you may consider that location too… if you’re headed up north and need somewhere reliable and fresh to enjoy lunch or desire take out for those long road trips up to the cottage. I promise if you go here you will be very happy you did. The food is excellent and super fresh.

What A Bagel seems to have a lock on the bagel market in the Yonge/​Eglinton area. Kiva’s is a fixture at Steeles/​Bathurst and they’re bringing their J-​town cache to the goy. I like their twister bagels but I have to say they depart from the Montréal-​style bagel that I know and love. Anyway, grab a bagel and head to a movie at the Silvercity.

Love the cream cheese and lox. The bagel selection is impressive and they even offer gluten free. Service can be a bit slow during the lunch rush, so you do need some patience. Take out only, restaurant is tiny (seats really close together too).

Kiva is one of the few great places in the Yonge & St. Clair ‘hood. The staff are super friendly and their sandwiches are fantastic. Also the soup is always great on those winter days.

This place serves pretty decent bagels.
What really draws me here is the lack of choice in the area for a quick morning breaky on Sat or Sun. Kiva’s always seems to be open, and it helps that their staff is always extra cheery and welcoming!
They serve a variety of bagels with options of flat or extra twisty styles. I’d say the downfall is that a lot of items are pricer than you would anticipate but I would recommend a flat poppyseed with cream-​cheese, regular poppy seed with lox or turkey & avocado, or the 3 egg + bagel option (with twisted poppyseed as the bagel option, obviously poppyseed is the way to go)!
worth a try if you’re in the hood and itchin for a bagel!

By far one of my favorite food spots in this neighborhood. I’ve frequented it dozens of times — a month.
Specialties? Custom salads, especially the spinach leaf with avocado. And of course it comes with a bagel.
Also try their danishes. They’re not the super-​sweet Timmie’s type, it’s far more subtle with a cheese center. I make special trips regularly to this place just for the danishes.
Only downside? Their hours aren’t open long enough. Sometimes you just want a danish or salad later at night.

The place has potential but it’s really disorganized and the staff don’t seem keen on helping patrons figure out where to go. The restaurant is also extremely small – too small for a neighbourhood like Deer Park that has a high volume of business people out and about at the same time for lunch.
I just had the soup to go and they couldn’t even bother to put napkins or cutlery in my take away bag. Not impressed.

Ah man, this is such a hard review to write.
The service at this place is the best of any restaurant, coffee shop, service, ANYTHING in the Yonge and St. Claire area — possibly, in the world.
So far, the server has made me laugh three times, given me two free samples and refilled my latte (for free!). What is going on??? Is Kiva in some bizarre space-​time warp bubble that lands them squarely in Pleasantville?
Apart from the service, the presentation of my poppyseed bagel, chicken salad and latte were impeccable. Not your typical bagel joint. My chicken salad was fresh and well thought out. It’s not hard to google a chicken salad recipe. This clearly was not done here.
My only complaint was the bagel itself. Which was what I was really excited about. I found it to be too tough. If only I could have given Kiva’s five stars… alas.
The Cons:
–their hours (7am-​5pm) although the server mentioned that they will begin extended hours soon.
Pros:
–free wifi
–gorgeous seating area!
–they deliver

It has been a bagelful weekend.
After a successful brunch at United Bakers, we decided to get a fix closer to home, at the Kivas at Yonge and St. Clair.
This location opened last fall to great excitement among the Forest Hill crowd, many of whom remember trekking northward to the perpetually run-​down bakery at Bathurst and Steeles.
The Yonge and St. Clair Kivas fronts it’s retail credibility. A sales counter holds refrigerated items like pre-​packed cream cheese, tuna and egg salads, sodas and cloudy apple juice from Israel. They are joined by sweet baked goods, fine rugalach (which make a free appearance after the meal), and chocolate buffalo, which is basically a sweet, bready dough wrapped around insanely fudgy chocolate, and worth taking out on its own.
The place is clearly geared towards take-​out. People pop by for the bagel-​cream-​cheese-​lox fix. However, at the back there is a sleek dining room with comfy benches and chairs, funky wainscoting on the walls (I haven’t used the word ‘wainscoting’ since a Monty Python bender a few years ago), and modern light fixtures. The bathrooms reflect the trend towards unisex WCs, and shared sinks outside designed to shame everyone into hand washing compliance. Unlike uptown, they are clean.
From a dining perspective, there are two Kivas. Bagels are unapologetically Toronto-​centric. Dense, crusty-​chewy rolls showered with poppy or sesame seeds. Pumpernickel and marble flavors offend traditionalists mildly. Whole wheat and other atrocities are rightfully ignored. Bring home a dozen, with appropriate salads and toppings, and maybe a dessert or ten, and you’ve got the makings of a fine Sunday brunch.
Eat in, and you’re asking for trouble.
Greek salad is a mound of fresh vegetables dusted with feta and not-​greek-​but-​welcome-​anyway eggs hard boiled to creaminess, olive-​oil based dressing on the side. Chicken soup is a damning failure. A crock arrives, dominated by a single softball-​sized and textured matzo ball. Chopped carrot and onion take up a good portion of the vessel. They’ve been added after the fact, and aren’t properly cooked out. Weirdest of all, the soup is sour. We can’t decide if it’s from all the onion juice, or if someone threw a lemon or vinegar into the batch. Nobody gets sick, so we don’t think the broth has spoilt. If a Kiva’s representative would like to explain, I’d love to hear it. It’s not my taste, but I’m curious whether it’s a different cultural approach, or just lousy soup.
Breakfast is most successful. A plate of lox, eggs and onions features slivers of fish and well-​caramelized onions, with tomato and cucumber garnish, and a glorious toasted bagel dripping with butter.
Coffee is stale and grey, initially served in a glass mug that highlights its stale-​greyness (I hate glass mugs). When transferred to ceramic, it holds heat better, and if you get a pot immediately, it’s OK.
Service is frustrating. Three people work the counter and restaurant simultaneously, so nothing gets done. Orders are mixed up despite fewer than five occupied tables. A tuna melt arrives as an ice-​cold tuna congealed. It is grudgingly re-​warmed. One one occasion, it arrives hot, but we are told that because we’re late, there’s no soup or salad to round out the $ 9.99 price set out in the menu. We’re charged the full amount, even though they fail to deliver the whole plate.
As a bagel bakery, Kivas deserves much more than it gets here. As a restaurant, it deserves much less.

This is more like it! Kiva’s Bagels are the closest approximation to New York bagels that I have found in Canada. They taste good!
Also like: the tuna salad, the rugelah, and the people. Very friendly service, and they’ll recommend items to you (they recommended the tuna and I agree!)
One of my colleagues ordered a bunch of bagels for a meeting and everything was good. Lots of varieties of cream cheese.
Sometimes they even give you a free rugelach with your sandwich! Nice!
I’ll be back.

I’ve always been a fan of Kiva’s at the Bathurst and Steeles location (the original) and decided to give the Yonge and St. Clair a try as well to see if it’s the same and comparable. Without surprise, everything was perfect (in my opinion) like the original.
Although A LOT smaller in size (one is a restaurant and one is a Bagel Bar /​Express) they still managed to keep the same taste and quality in their bagels, coffee, tuna (phenomenal), and egg salad.
I will definitely be frequenting this location a lot more since it’s right across the street from my office.

They’re okay. They’ve given me a quick option near work that doesn’t involve copious amounts of cheese (I’m looking at you, pizza!) Their soups are delicious & (supposedly) all vegetarian. Their bagels are decent. But their service? Blech.
1^st visit: I ordered a sesame bagel, toasted with egg salad to go. 5 minutes after my bagels toasts, the guy behind the counter realizes there isn’t any egg salad left & tells me it will be a few minutes. «Never mind.» I counteract (I had 30 minutes to get across town) Just put some butter on it. «How about turkey or tuna?» he pushed. «No thank you. I’m vegetarian.» He offered me everything else in sight. «NO. Just give me the bagel.»
My coworkers raved about it. I returned hesitantly, this time to dine within. Being told my order would be brought to my table — I went & sat. 15 minutes later… (it was a toasted bagel with egg salad + soup) I went to go track it down. It had been sitting on the counter for the past 10 minutes, unnoticed by anyone by the counter.
The egg salad was on the side. If I wanted egg salad on the side — why would I order the bagel in the first place? Also, it was pretty bland.
Also, one of the workers (perhaps the owner?) was very forward. Trying to make conversation & not picking up social cues & shoving free samples at people. I don’t want to try your cream cheese, okay?!
Basically if you want pushy & not very great service, this would be the place. If you have your patience hat on — give it a try; their soup could be worth it.