Goldstein’s Bagel Bakery

Came here on Father’s Day. We were in the drive thru and wanted a bakers dozen of the works bagels. They ran out. They gave us a free coffee and a soda for the inconvenience of waiting for 10 minutes. Good service. Bagels were tasty and worth the wait.

I used to L O V E, Goldstein’s Bagels.
I haven’t had one in Years so I was happy to find myself in Glendale and near this one.
When I walked in and looked at baskets full of bagels I thought they all looked a little pale, on the under-​done side.
The server got our order correct without much fuss. Two onions, one toasted one not w/​one regular one scallion spread and two bagels dry, sliced. 4 Bagels, two sides cream cheese one small soda 13.50. That’s somewhere between Iuch and Damn.
My onion and the works bagel were both Excellent. Crisp exterior crust, chewy and works with a hint of salt. As good as I remember. The «scallion» cc, had chunks of regular onion which was a bit too chunky for me. It was also a little runny not cool, whipped and creamy.
My son said the choc chip was really good. His regular cc was a bit fluffier.
So on my trip down bagel lane some good memories but a little put off by 2016 prices.
Just as I’m about to finish a «3star» review my son orders another «choc chip» bagel which I gave him $ 1.50 for. He comes back with a New Yorker, salmon and onions. How did you get that??? 11 y/​o old charm, hopefully a please and one very sweet Goldstein employee being super generous. Go give her a hug boss. Above and beyond is the essence of 5 stars and man they earned it.

I always got to starbucks next door and but this time I decided to try something different. It A-​OK, not really special about it. One thing I can say it’s expensive for grocery quality bagels.
I would try them again, but my first experience was not great.

Unilocal 100 review challenge ⁴⁶⁄₁₀₀
Really! Trust me and just don’t go! This was my second visit here. First time I swung in through the drive thru. This second time I came with Hubz and had the sit-​in experience.
Do not order the banana bagel. It smells like an overripe banana was left in a lunchbox next to your fav sandwich of the day. It taste nothing like banana. A few nuts. Wasn’t pleasant!
The everything with cheese bagel was not appealing either. You will have onion breath. And we’ll thats about it. It was paired with the garden cream cheese which had radish, carrots, and bell pepper chunks inside. I didn’t like much.
As for cream cheese… expect it to be slobbered. Wayyyyyy too much. I feel like this is a fast food bagel place. It’s like the Mcd of bagels! They have many flavored bagels and flavored cream cheeses you can choose from. Which is cool.
I was intrigued by the whole bagel concept. Goldstein’s boils the bagels before baking them. There’s a window inside where you can watch them being prepared to which is really cool. You can watch while you wait in a long line.
The line had about 10 people in front of us on the weekend. It took about 20 minutes for us to be attended to. I recommend the naked juice in a bottle or the coffee. Which were both good. Otherwise, I won’t be back.
In this case, two strikes your out!
Private parking!
There were sandwiches, breakfast bowls, and burritos which I didn’t try!
Indoor and outdoor seating.

Very sad for a business that started in the heart of Pasadena. A good friend of mine used to be the Manager there in the late ‘90s (Dean S… remember him Michael?) What happened after Dean left?
Here’s where my disappointment began. Last week got a craving for a Turkey Bake. Since I live in the South Bay, a drive to the northern tip of the San Gabriel Valley on a Sunday is a bit of a hike. But the Turkey Bake USED to be worth it.
Now let me explain how I remember it almost 20 years ago: it was the size of a small softball, warm, full of TURKEY and melted cheese, and the breading was somewhat crispy with a slightly chewy feel.
I went Sunday around 1 pm. They had ONE Turkey Bake left (which used to happen in the past; they usually sell out early), which looked like it was left-​over from yesterday. Since I had driven what seemed like the time and distance to Vegas, I had to at least buy the Turkey Bake so I could prove to my wife that it was worth our Sunday.
At the end of it all, we spent over 35 dollars for a dried out and pitiful Turkey Bake that was the literal size of Totino’s Pizza Roll (sorry Totino’s), a bagel burger, fries that looked and tasted like they came from a corner fast food place with a # in the name, and a thin layer of cream cheese on a fairly decent tasting plain bagel. At least those remained tasty; but not worth 35 dollars at the end of it.
Read all the Unilocal reviews about this place. So SO SAD… Michael, what happened to your business?

Eight dollars a dozen for stale bagels! You got to be kidding!!! I guess people pay it, but i wont. Just my opinion

Super inconsistent, one day you’ll get the perfect amount of spread on your bagel, the next they’ll barely put any. Nothing’s more disappointing then a half dry bagel :(

I used to come here before until we move to LA and now i just visited this place again. I love this place, my favorite here is the cream cheese on a bagel that is extremely delicious. and I still thought that it’s still the same now but unfortunately not anymore. I ordered the same but I’m disappointed because it’s way different to what I have expected. Less cream and lack of flavor. As I asked for more cream cheese they put additional charge for it.
I don’t know if I still coming back here.

No stars would be appropriate here. Person ahead of me completes their order and this 60+ woman with kinky dyed blond, short hair says, «Can I help you, Sir?»
Maybe she’s not looking up, maybe she just saw my short hair and polo shirt, but I gently corrected her (because I’m a woman) and said, «It’s ma’am. May I please have a toasted sesame bagel with cream cheese?»
She makes it, goes to ring me up and says, «That’ll be $ 3.19, Sir.»
So I said, «Ma’am.»
She says, «Oh, sorry, Sir.»
I said, «I’ve corrected you twice. It’s not Sir, it’s Ma’am.
Meanwhile she’s fumbling around with my money and says, «Okay, Sir.»
I said, «This is not okay, I’m a woman, not a man and your behavior is extraordinarily rude. You know what, just give me back my money.»
It was like she had the $ 10 waiting in her hand and wasn’t really trying to make change and hands it to me and says, «I was going to give this back to you anyway.»
Then she pushes the bagel basket forward and goes, «Here.»
Forget that! I went across the way to Starbucks and got an everything bagel there. Tasted like heaven compared to eating shit at this place.
I’ll be calling corporate when they open tomorrow.
**UPDATE**
I hadn’t heard back by 11, so I called and spoke to the manager. She said the woman was a shift manager and she’d left a report that she’d had a problem with a customer and had the other employee write one up as well. I have no idea what he could have written since soon as he took care of the customers in front of me, he went to the back room.
The manager, Josie, was very appropriate. She apologized that I’d had a bad experience, said she’d read the report as soon as the rush slowed down and that she’d call the owner and escalate it immediately. She said it was the person’s day off, so she couldn’t address it with her till tomorrow. But she was very sorry for any distress and she would ask the owner to call me back.
The owner called me about thirty minutes later. He said, «I heard you had a problem at one of my restaurants.»
I proceeded to explain my concern, concluding with the fact that I had taken my business across the way to Starbucks.
He said, «It seems like there was a simple misunderstanding. She was probably confused. They’re probably confused. These are not evil people. She’s probably just never encountered a situation like this in her entire life.»
Honestly, I did not think this was the way most restaurant owners would start an apology for the deplorable behavior of his employee. And I was confused. I asked him what «situation» was he referring to?
He said, «Well, I guess this is a gender-​identity issue and she has probably never dealt with anything like this.»
So I said to him, «This was not a gender-​identity issue. I’m a woman. I have a big, 48DD rack. More importantly, I told her that I’m a woman and asked her to stop calling me «Sir.» She was making eye contact with me. She wasn’t confused, she was rude and trying to make some weird point.»
He said, «Well, I’m recovering from heart surgery, what do you want me to do? These people’s lives depend on their salary. I’ll look into it and ‘IF’ she needs training, I’ll see that she gets it.»
I hung up disappointed and disillusioned. I can’t believe this happened. I’m still more stunned than upset, I think. This owner, Michael Goldstein, made me even more upset than the employee because he’s responsible for his staff and it felt like he was absolutely trying to blame the person insulted by his «confused» worker.
Not the kind of behavior or attitudes I expect in our Montrose/​La Canada neighborhood.

My girlfriend and I came here for breakfast, and the food was actually really good. One problem though. We ordered a bagel ranchero which includes egg. Ours didn’t have egg, and when brought to the employees attention, she laughed and said ok I’ll make you a new one. So here I am, sitting for 45 minutes and decided to write this review then leave. Thanks for the disrespect & no bagel.

Always disappointed leaving here. The service is so bad. Sometimes, flat out rude. Not a great start to a day

I used to love this place but somehow the 1.90 worth of cream cheese on a bagel has gotten extremely skimpy. I asked for some extra cream cheese and Gloria said it would cost 1.75– are you kidding me?! I’m extremely disappointed by the ratios of cream cheese they now give and the poor customer service. It should be called bagels with flavoring of cream cheese. Looks like they want to keep their cream cheese more than they want to keep paying customers.

The gas station bathroom kinda kills this place for me. Bagels are great, service is meh, inside is meh, just make sure you go to the bathroom before stopping by this joint.

The bagels are good but the business is cheap and tries not to honor their coupons … Aside from that they donate to homeless shelters so there you go.

The bagels were all right but not great. The bagel and lox was pretty disappointing; had kind of a funny aftertaste and there wasn’t very much fish on the bagel. I thought this would be a Jewish bagel joint but it seemed more like a big chain with so-​so food; I would definitely skip it next time. I was going to bring home a few egg bagels but they were bright orange (never seen that) so I got plain instead. The people who work here are nice and service is fast. I lived in NYC for 7 years and this place should not pretend they’re anything like a NYC bagel place. they really have nothing in common.
It’s a hike but Bagel Broker in Fairfax is amazing if you want the real deal. If you’re just looking for a quick place to get an okay bagel in the area Goldstein’s is fine.

The bagels are really fresh, and they have such a huge quantity of bagels. The cream cheese is really creamy, and homemade. I bought the works, jalapeño cheddar, jalapeño, and regular bagel. This place is always packed, and I can see why.

Wow worst bagels I’ve ever had! I was better off eating a grocery store bagel. I used to live near an Einstein’s bagels and would frequently go so I decided to give this place a try thinking it would be the same experience, definitely not!
First I tried the sesame bagel with jalepeno cream cheese. The bagel was dry and tough and it was slathered with sooo much cream cheese it was spilling from all over and it was pretty disgusting. Not to mention, there were so many jalepenos in the cream cheese it was basically like eating an entire jalepeno.
I decided to give it another try, second time I ordered the cheese and jalepeno bagel with herb cream cheese. It was a plain bagel with a block of cheddar cheese stuck to it and topped with jalepenos, it looked like a five year old made this bagel as a cooking project, so SLOPPY. Since it was toasted, the oils from the cheese were all over the bagel, bagels aren’t supposed to be oily, it was disgusting!!! And again they had slathered sooo much cream cheese it was oozing everywhere.
This place is an abomination to authentic New York bagels. It was the most unappetizing bagels I’ve ever had, I cant believe people pay money for this crap. I think the only reason this place is still open is because it seems to be the only bagel shop in the area. Luckily, I found another bagel place in Burbank that is worth the drive because they have fresh and delicious bagels with well made spreads, doesn’t feel like a cafeteria lady made them, but a professional and clean establishment.

What I first noticed about the only bagel shop near Glendale was it’s convenient drive through. I chose to dine in for the whole experience.
The bagels looked good… You know… like normal bagels. I’m typically an everything bagel with veggie smear kinda gal (their veggie smear was just plain cream cheese with legit chunks of veggies– overall… Meh), but since my bagel date got that I picked my other go-​to… A breakfast sandwich. My everything bagel was fine (a little salty), bacon, cheddar and egg. I appreciated the fact that it was a real egg. I only regretted getting the original breakfast sandwich because their ketchup choice was not Heinz and I can’t fuck with that.
I went to get some coffee and it was empty, but is okay because a regular took me under her wing and showed me what to do when they run out… Ask the employees for more coffee. The French vanilla was Yumkins.
Sonia was incredibly nice and helpful. When I expressed interest in using the restroom, she made sure I was given a key since the lady occupying it before me was taking her sweet time. Overall it’s a meh place, but I’ll be back cause… Bagels.
After only half a breakfast sandwich, I spoke some unthinkable words… «I’m full.» Next time I’ll try the bagel version of a deli sandwich.

It’s really hard for me going to bagel shops unless it’s a Western Bagels. With that being said, this Goldstein bagel location serves decent bagels and they have a drive thru. Big bonus!
I only find their bagel to be a bit more doughy and heavy as what I’d prefer them to be. With that being said, I should just be thankful there’s a nearby bagel shop.

This place seems to be a hit or miss.
It’s an ok bagel place but doesn’t really stand out against other bagel chains.
I found my everything bagel to be very hard and super salty. The veggies in my simply turkey sandwich seemed kind of old.
However, my brothers breakfast bagel sandwich looked and smelled amazing. The bagel was soft, with a large portion of egg, and good amount of gooey cheese.
If I had to return, it would only be for breakfast. That’s it.
The staff was very nice though.