Au Bon Pain

There are actually two Au Bön Pains in Port Authority, this review is for the one located directly on the subway level. The customer service there is out of this world. The staff there is so friendly, they make the trek through a bustling mass transit hub just a bit more bearable. They are always super helpful and cheery. All of the displays are neat and fully stocked. I am kinda addicted to their oatmeal and hazelnut coffee, it’s my go to breakfast when I am work bound to NJ.

I get my breakfast and coffee from here everyday. It is pretty clean and I cannot complain how fast employees there are. The only thing I don’t like is they don’t make my sandwich as I request sometimes; they didn’t add tomato on my sandwich for several times.
Except that, it is pretty convenient and quick coffee and sandwich stop for me.

Now, this is for the main store that’s up on the first floor, not the smaller one downstairs.
For a person who’s been dropping in every other morning for breakfast for the last 5 – 6 years, yesterday (7÷30÷15) was the absolute worse experience ever. Normally the customer service I get with the cashiers are just «eh» and sometimes good. But yesterday was borderline «forget it, I’m walking out of here.» The attitude of the two cashiers by the side wall on the side where you can order your hot sandwiches and fancier coffees was terrible, not to mention rude.
From the minute I stood on line to pay, the only thing I can hear from the cashier was non stop bitching. I get it, the job kinda sucks and you have to be on your feet for long hours, but don’t take it out on the customers.

I really have to stop getting mac & cheese from these places. It’s always overcooked and separating, and I should have learned my lesson at previous Au Bön Pains. My friend tried some of the ice tea and had to throw it out. She made me taste it and THEN asked me if it tasted like someone pissed in it. Thanks, girl. But yeah it was terrible. She tossed it and some other girls also followed suit, probably thinking the same thing.

Worst customer service ever. Au Bön Pain corporate office, is this how you want to represent your company? Either get your staff trained or hire competent individuals. Our world needs less ghetto and more pleasantness.

This is my go-​to cookie stop when I’m coming home through the PABT. The cookies are good. Checkout is usually pretty fast.
They have an «A» rating, but overall the place doesn’t have a really clean feel. Probably that’s mostly because it’s in the bus terminal, which ranks extremely high on the skeevy scale, but they could keep the place tidier.
However, I forget all about that when I bite into an English Toffee Cookie!

I stop in a couple of times a weak for a cinnamon scone and coffee. This morning the music was way louder than normal. At times people had to raise there voices to carry on a conversation. Very unpleasant. so I asked the security guard to turn music down. Her response was classic — she claimed volume was set automatically and couldn’t be controlled (translation: I am too lazy to check with the manager). I finally got her to say that the volume could probably be controlled but she didn’t offer to do anything about it.

I usually stop in here when travelling through the Port Authori’ty.
It’s convenient & the decaf coffee is tasty. Prices are exactly as you would expect so don’t start bitchin’, it’s NYC.
They usually offer some kind of deal on breakfast & a drink, so it’s a decent morning option. It’s often crowded here too.

Make sure Maggie making the lattes hears the drink order being shouts by the order taker. Awful system. Missed my drink. After reminding them, they still proceed to make drinks other customers who ordered after me. Grrr

Love the double chocolate cupcakes, they’re a little heaven here on earth,
Coffee is always fresh, my only complaint is that the pre made sandwiches don’t seem to be fresh! Eek!
I have had the Brie and fruit, very satisfying snack, and healthy!
The lines always move along pretty quickly and the staff is very friendly!

I’ve been having chest pain since I has coffe here wednesday morning. it’s now 3.22am Thursday, and still have a worrisome needles feeling on my left ribcage, I hope it goes away. Just in case it gets worse, I am blaming the coffee I had here, it was the breakfast blend!

This is the worst ABP I have ever been to, without a doubt. We got there at around 6:30PM on a Tuesday evening to pick up food for our bus ride. I asked for a bagel, and they said they were out of bagels. Alright, sure. I asked them if they were out of anything else, and they said that they had all other kinds of bread. I then proceeded to try different types of bread in turn, and they were (surprise surprise) out of all of them. Turns out they only baguettes and white bread left. Wow, thanks guys.
After narrowing down the type of bread, I wanted an egg and cheese on my bread. I originally wanted it on a bagel, so I just asked for a substitution. Well, it took them ten minutes to agree to make something that was «not on their menu.» I was so close to losing my cool!
Then, payment. It took another ten minutes for me to pay because the cashier was 1) incompetent at punching orders into the computer, and 2) trying to hold a casual conversation with an employee across the store by yelling over all the customers’ heads. Needless to say, I will never be back here.

So i was at AU BON PAIN in NYC Port Authority this morning getting my usual breakfast wearing my leggings, north face, and rain boots… nothing crazy. I felt weird because two male employees kept circling me and following me around the store so since i had my headphones i decided to turn off my music but keep them on so they think i can’t hear them…
wow. these two employees were ridiculously graphic about my body and of course my ass… Then not only were they doing that but then told other co workers so they could chime in… by the end of my visit i had about 3 guys following me around the store and a female even commenting. wtf kind of people do they hire.

Love their sweet cheese croissants. Love the service. Dont hesitate to ask to have your croissants heated up. They did for me.

The food is okay…

This location is the pits. Smells weird, like funky cheese and not good funky… but like funky funky.
Came here after playing catch-​up with a former boss at Heartland Brewery a few weeks ago and I was hungry so I ordered a modest breakfast sandwich — 2 eggs and cheddar on a a ciabatta bun.
What I got was a stale, over-​floured and pathetic excuse for a ciabatta bread that strangely chewy because it was warmed up in a microwave. In my world, a sandwich is completely destroyed when the bread sucks.
The egg and cheese were your standard, Dunkin Donuts-​like, prepared microwave thing. C’mon Au Bön Pain — I thought you guys were better than this? :-/​
To round out my negative experience here, the girl at the register who charged me couldn’t find my sandwich in the register (and the sandwich number apparently didn’t work… eyeroll here) so she charged me a bit more and put it in as a chicken sandwich.
By this point I probably should have gotten a chicken sandwich — it might have been better, but I just paid because I had a train to catch.
Bleh.

Typical Au Bön Pain but well-​priced for the area.

Wow! This place can get crowded/​confusing! It is essentially cut into two by the escalators! So when I am extremely indecisive, I find myself wandering back and forth between commuters that usually curse and/​or me or hit me with things! And I always wonder «Am I allowed to take a selection from Part 1 to Part 2 of Au Bön?» I also wonder if I can throw my bagel at annoying commuter who bumped into me! GRR!
Also, with re to lunch, I wish they offered more simple vegetarian salads. I always find an abundance of Caesar salads but no veggie salads! Isn’t the word salad alone synonymous with veggie!

Pretty standard Au Bön Pain.
People here feel okay asking if they can share a table with you when the tables are few and far between, so I guess I’d say the crowd is friendly. There are definitely the people who stay all day, but I was also surprised to see how quickly tables turned over, even though it was crowded.
Service was pretty standard. The space feels kind of sterile and, to me, doesn’t have much personality, but, like I said, the look is pretty standard for this chain.

The first time I went here I was interning next door and honestly you can’t beat their refillable cups. Usually I beat the rush so I have no complaints about that — however it is in the Port Authority so you’re bound to find it quite busy not just at breakfast, lunch or dinner but whenever a train or bus pulls in simultaneously. With that being said I love their hot melts and soups. Aside from the occasional salad or pastry those are the items that kept me going back.
Sweet deal though aside from the cheap coffee (if you get a refillable cup which saves you money) is that after 5 I believe there’s a sale on the pastries which means you can grab tomorrow’s breakfast if you’d like.