Across 1,082 completed interviews at four converted locations, 95.8% of guests rate their order 4 or 5. The clearest read on the conversion comes from the 679 guests who told us they used to visit when the store was Bruegger's. 53% of them say their satisfaction has increased, 41% say it has stayed the same, and 6% say it has decreased.
The conversion has clearly lifted the physical experience. Cleanliness and item availability are both measurably higher than the pre-conversion baseline. The pressure sits on repeat business and on the food itself. Return intent is the single largest decline in the study, and taste of food is down as well.
Q7-a. Since this location became an Einstein Bros., has your satisfaction with your orders increased, decreased, or stayed about the same?
Asked of guests who said they visited when the location was Bruegger's. n=679
| Location | n | Increased | Same | Decreased |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| East Lansing | 301 | 59% | 37% | 4% |
| Ann Arbor | 173 | 50% | 42% | 8% |
| Rochester | 103 | 47% | 41% | 12% |
| Bloomfield | 102 | 43% | 53% | 4% |
Every location has more guests reporting improvement than decline, by a wide margin. Rochester and Ann Arbor carry the highest share of guests who say satisfaction dropped, at 12% and 8%. East Lansing has the strongest verdict, with 59% reporting an increase.
Two attributes are measurably higher than before the conversion and four are measurably lower. The full attribute-by-attribute comparison, with confidence intervals and the reasoning behind each verdict, sits in the Pre vs post tab.
These guests are not unhappy with what they were served. Their value-for-price rating averages 3.68 against 4.30 for the sample as a whole, a gap of more than six tenths of a point. Price is acting as a brake on visit frequency rather than a complaint about the experience.
Price and value is also the single most common theme guests raise without being asked, appearing in 11.4% of interviews across all four locations. Menu and variety follows at 5.3%.
Themes coded from open-text answers to Q4, Q5 and the follow-up "what made you give it that score" questions, across all 1,082 completed interviews. Responses can carry more than one theme, so shares do not total 100%.
Of 679 former Bruegger's guests, 43 report lower satisfaction. Their open-text answers point almost entirely at the bagel itself and the menu, not at service, cleanliness or speed.
Bagel texture, thickness and the boil method come up repeatedly, alongside named items guests want back. This group is small in absolute terms and disproportionately valuable, since former Bruegger's regulars are the most likely source of repeat visits. Their feedback names specific products rather than general dissatisfaction, which makes it addressable.
Strongest: Friendliness 4.80, Visit satisfaction 4.70
Weakest: Return intent 4.54, Speed of service 4.61
Strongest: Speed of service 4.67, Item availability 4.75
Weakest: Value for price 4.20, Overall rating 4.64
Strongest: Value for price 4.44, Return intent 4.70
Weakest: Item availability 4.66, Friendliness 4.76
Strongest: Overall rating 4.81, Speed of service 4.68
Weakest: Recommend intent 4.66, Return intent 4.57
16 guests have answered the screener, 13 of whom had a toasted bagel or bagel sandwich. All 13 who rated their toastiness chose "just right." Read that as an encouraging early signal rather than a 100% satisfaction score, because a base of 13 carries a margin of error wide enough to accommodate almost any true value.
| Location | Total interviews | Completes since 2026-08-05 | Answered Q16a | Toasted | Not toasted | Rated toastiness | "Just right" | Flagged an issue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| East Lansing | 496 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 7 | 100% | 0 |
| Ann Arbor | 283 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 |
| Rochester | 148 | 9 | 8 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 100% | 0 |
| Bloomfield | 155 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 100% | 0 |
| All locations | 1,082 | 19 | 16 | 13 | 3 | 13 | 100% | 0 |
Q16a. Before you go, one quick thing about your food. Did your order today include a bagel or bagel sandwich that was toasted? · Counts, not percentages, because bases are below reporting threshold.
Q16b. Thinking about how it came out, was it toasted too little, too much, or just right? · n=13
The structured question set is too new to read, but toasting has come up on its own throughout the study. Across all 1,082 completed interviews, 23 guests mention toasting in an open-text answer without being asked about it.
Every unprompted complaint about toasting is about too little, never too much. That is a useful hypothesis for the new question set to test, and it sits in tension with the 13 structured responses collected so far, all of which chose "just right." Give the question set a few more weeks of fielding before drawing a conclusion. Note that the guests quoted below would all have answered "just right" under the current routing, since none of them were dissatisfied enough to complain when asked directly, which is a reason to widen Q16d rather than rely on the structured read alone.
This baseline was fielded as a conversational survey between 2026-04-01 and 2026-06-15, producing 140 sessions. Because guests answered in their own words rather than picking from a list, each attribute has its own base. 114 guests gave a usable overall rating and the smallest attribute base is 72.
Value for price was the clear outlier at 4.34, more than four tenths below every other attribute. Everything tied to people and product scored above 4.7. The store also carried a genuinely loyal base: 77% of guests who described their visit frequency came at least monthly, and only 8% were visiting for the first time.
| Attribute and survey question | Mean | n | Rated 4-5 | Rated 5 | Rated 1-2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating Q3. On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your order today? 5 means excellent, 1 means poor. | 4.62 | 114 | 91.2% | 80.7% | 7.9% |
| Visit satisfaction Q8. How satisfied were you with your visit today? | 4.86 | 79 | 98.7% | 89.9% | 1.3% |
| Value for price Q9. How about the overall value for the price you paid? | 4.34 | 89 | 88.8% | 50.6% | 4.5% |
| Speed of service Q10. And the speed of service? | 4.73 | 88 | 96.6% | 77.3% | 1.1% |
| Friendliness Q11. How satisfied were you with the friendliness of the team members? | 4.77 | 86 | 98.8% | 79.1% | 1.2% |
| Taste of food Q12. How about the taste of the food? | 4.80 | 84 | 98.8% | 81.0% | 0.0% |
| Item availability Q13. Were the items you wanted available? How satisfied were you with that? | 4.56 | 72 | 97.2% | 61.1% | 1.4% |
| Cleanliness Q14. And finally, how satisfied were you with the overall cleanliness of the bakery? | 4.67 | 76 | 96.1% | 72.4% | 1.3% |
| Recommend intent Q15. On a scale of 1 to 5, how likely are you to recommend this Einstein Bros. to others in the next 30 days? | 4.83 | 87 | 96.6% | 88.5% | 1.1% |
| Return intent Q16. And how likely are you to return to this Einstein Bros. in the next 30 days? | 4.81 | 81 | 96.3% | 85.2% | 0.0% |
Pre-rebrand baseline, Bruegger's Detroit. Each attribute has its own base, shown in the table above.
Q3. On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your order today? 5 means excellent, 1 means poor. · n=114
How often do you typically visit or order from this location? · Coded from open-text answers. n=72 of 140 sessions gave a codeable answer.
How did you place your order today? · n=112
Named staff recur throughout the baseline, with Maureen, Izzy, Denise, Jack and Austin all mentioned by name. Guests describe being recognised, having their order remembered and being greeted. That personal familiarity was the strongest loyalty signal in the pre-rebrand data, and it is the asset most at risk when a store changes name, menu and layout at once.
Cleanliness and item availability are both measurably higher than the Bruegger's baseline. Return intent, visit satisfaction, recommend intent and taste of food are all measurably lower. Overall rating, value for price, speed of service and friendliness show no clear movement in either direction.
The baseline is small, so this comparison reports a 95% confidence interval on every difference and calls a change real only where it clears statistical significance. A difference that sits inside its interval is noise, not movement, and is labelled as such rather than being written up as a trend.
| Attribute and survey question | Pre | Post | Change | 95% CI | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Item availability Q13. Were the items you wanted available? How satisfied were you with that? | 4.56 n=72 | 4.72 n=1019 | +0.16 | [+0.00, +0.32] | Higher |
| Cleanliness Q14. And finally, how satisfied were you with the overall cleanliness of the bakery? | 4.67 n=76 | 4.81 n=1021 | +0.14 | [+0.00, +0.28] | Higher |
| Overall rating Q3. On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your order today? 5 means excellent, 1 means poor. | 4.62 n=114 | 4.70 n=1081 | +0.08 | [-0.09, +0.25] | No clear change |
| Friendliness Q11. How satisfied were you with the friendliness of the team members? | 4.77 n=86 | 4.77 n=1021 | +0.01 | [-0.10, +0.12] | No clear change |
| Value for price Q9. How about the overall value for the price you paid? | 4.34 n=89 | 4.30 n=1021 | -0.04 | [-0.22, +0.14] | No clear change |
| Speed of service Q10. And the speed of service? | 4.73 n=88 | 4.64 n=1021 | -0.09 | [-0.21, +0.04] | No clear change |
| Taste of food Q12. How about the taste of the food? | 4.80 n=84 | 4.67 n=1020 | -0.12 | [-0.22, -0.02] | Lower |
| Recommend intent Q15. On a scale of 1 to 5, how likely are you to recommend this Einstein Bros. to others in the next 30 days? | 4.83 n=87 | 4.68 n=1021 | -0.15 | [-0.27, -0.02] | Lower |
| Visit satisfaction Q8. How satisfied were you with your visit today? | 4.86 n=79 | 4.68 n=1019 | -0.19 | [-0.31, -0.06] | Lower |
| Return intent Q16. And how likely are you to return to this Einstein Bros. in the next 30 days? | 4.81 n=81 | 4.58 n=1020 | -0.23 | [-0.34, -0.12] | Lower |
Overall rating (4.62 to 4.70), friendliness (4.77 to 4.77), value for price (4.34 to 4.30) and speed of service (4.73 to 4.64) all sit inside their confidence intervals. Friendliness holding flat is a genuine result rather than an absence of one: the personal service that defined the Bruegger's baseline survived a full rebrand.
Pre-rebrand baseline (Bruegger's Detroit) against the four converted locations combined. Each attribute has its own base; see the table above for exact counts.
Q3. On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your order today? 5 means excellent, 1 means poor. · n=114
Q3. On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your order today? 5 means excellent, 1 means poor. · n=1081
Themes coded from "what made you choose that rating" and "what stood out to you about your experience today." Pre-rebrand n=109, post-rebrand n=1080. Responses can carry more than one theme, so shares do not total 100%.
Mentions of cleanliness, atmosphere and the feel of the room rise from 5.5% of baseline guests to 29.2% post-rebrand, the largest shift of any theme. That is independent corroboration of the measured cleanliness gain, arrived at without anyone being asked about it. Staff and friendliness mentions also rise, from 39.4% to 46.7%.
Food quality and taste mentions fall from 39.4% to 30.2%, tracking the measured decline in taste of food. Read these as directional rather than precise, because the two surveys collected open text through different instruments.
Overall rating 4.68, with 96.4% of guests rating their order 4 or 5. Among guests who knew this location as Bruegger's, 59% say satisfaction has increased since the conversion and 4% say it has decreased (n=301).
Comparison is against the four-location post-conversion average, since the pre-conversion baseline was fielded only in Detroit and cannot be split by location.
| Attribute | Mean | n | Rated 4-5 | Rated 1-2 | Network avg | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 4.68 | 495 | 96.4% | 0.2% | 4.70 | -0.02 |
| Visit satisfaction | 4.70 | 434 | 97.2% | 0.5% | 4.68 | +0.02 |
| Value for price | 4.30 | 435 | 84.4% | 2.3% | 4.30 | +0.00 |
| Speed of service | 4.61 | 435 | 92.4% | 1.4% | 4.64 | -0.03 |
| Friendliness | 4.80 | 435 | 97.7% | 0.7% | 4.77 | +0.03 |
| Taste of food | 4.68 | 435 | 97.0% | 0.2% | 4.67 | +0.01 |
| Item availability | 4.71 | 435 | 95.6% | 1.4% | 4.72 | -0.01 |
| Cleanliness | 4.81 | 435 | 98.4% | 0.7% | 4.81 | +0.00 |
| Recommend intent | 4.69 | 435 | 95.6% | 1.6% | 4.68 | +0.01 |
| Return intent | 4.54 | 435 | 89.0% | 2.1% | 4.58 | -0.04 |
All ten rating questions, East Lansing, n=496 completed interviews
Q3. On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your order today? 5 means excellent, 1 means poor.
Q7-a. Since this location became an Einstein Bros., has your satisfaction with your orders increased, decreased, or stayed about the same?
Themes coded from open-text answers to Q4, Q5 and the follow-up "what made you give it that score" questions. Multi-code, so shares do not total 100%.
Overall rating 4.64, with 94.0% of guests rating their order 4 or 5. Among guests who knew this location as Bruegger's, 50% say satisfaction has increased since the conversion and 8% say it has decreased (n=173).
Comparison is against the four-location post-conversion average, since the pre-conversion baseline was fielded only in Detroit and cannot be split by location.
| Attribute | Mean | n | Rated 4-5 | Rated 1-2 | Network avg | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 4.64 | 283 | 94.0% | 0.7% | 4.70 | -0.06 |
| Visit satisfaction | 4.63 | 282 | 95.0% | 0.7% | 4.68 | -0.05 |
| Value for price | 4.20 | 283 | 80.6% | 4.6% | 4.30 | -0.10 |
| Speed of service | 4.67 | 283 | 96.1% | 0.0% | 4.64 | +0.03 |
| Friendliness | 4.74 | 283 | 96.5% | 0.7% | 4.77 | -0.03 |
| Taste of food | 4.67 | 282 | 96.8% | 0.7% | 4.67 | +0.00 |
| Item availability | 4.75 | 283 | 97.5% | 1.1% | 4.72 | +0.03 |
| Cleanliness | 4.80 | 283 | 97.9% | 0.4% | 4.81 | -0.01 |
| Recommend intent | 4.64 | 283 | 94.0% | 1.1% | 4.68 | -0.04 |
| Return intent | 4.60 | 282 | 91.1% | 3.9% | 4.58 | +0.02 |
All ten rating questions, Ann Arbor, n=283 completed interviews
Q3. On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your order today? 5 means excellent, 1 means poor.
Q7-a. Since this location became an Einstein Bros., has your satisfaction with your orders increased, decreased, or stayed about the same?
Themes coded from open-text answers to Q4, Q5 and the follow-up "what made you give it that score" questions. Multi-code, so shares do not total 100%.
Overall rating 4.77, with 95.9% of guests rating their order 4 or 5. Among guests who knew this location as Bruegger's, 47% say satisfaction has increased since the conversion and 12% say it has decreased (n=103).
Comparison is against the four-location post-conversion average, since the pre-conversion baseline was fielded only in Detroit and cannot be split by location.
| Attribute | Mean | n | Rated 4-5 | Rated 1-2 | Network avg | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 4.77 | 148 | 95.9% | 0.7% | 4.70 | +0.07 |
| Visit satisfaction | 4.68 | 148 | 97.3% | 0.7% | 4.68 | +0.00 |
| Value for price | 4.44 | 148 | 89.2% | 2.0% | 4.30 | +0.14 |
| Speed of service | 4.64 | 148 | 94.6% | 2.0% | 4.64 | +0.00 |
| Friendliness | 4.76 | 148 | 95.9% | 0.7% | 4.77 | -0.01 |
| Taste of food | 4.68 | 148 | 96.6% | 0.0% | 4.67 | +0.01 |
| Item availability | 4.66 | 146 | 94.5% | 2.7% | 4.72 | -0.06 |
| Cleanliness | 4.86 | 148 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 4.81 | +0.05 |
| Recommend intent | 4.75 | 148 | 94.6% | 0.0% | 4.68 | +0.07 |
| Return intent | 4.70 | 148 | 95.3% | 1.4% | 4.58 | +0.12 |
All ten rating questions, Rochester, n=148 completed interviews
Q3. On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your order today? 5 means excellent, 1 means poor.
Q7-a. Since this location became an Einstein Bros., has your satisfaction with your orders increased, decreased, or stayed about the same?
Themes coded from open-text answers to Q4, Q5 and the follow-up "what made you give it that score" questions. Multi-code, so shares do not total 100%.
Overall rating 4.81, with 97.4% of guests rating their order 4 or 5. Among guests who knew this location as Bruegger's, 43% say satisfaction has increased since the conversion and 4% say it has decreased (n=102).
Comparison is against the four-location post-conversion average, since the pre-conversion baseline was fielded only in Detroit and cannot be split by location.
| Attribute | Mean | n | Rated 4-5 | Rated 1-2 | Network avg | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 4.81 | 155 | 97.4% | 0.6% | 4.70 | +0.11 |
| Visit satisfaction | 4.68 | 155 | 96.1% | 0.6% | 4.68 | +0.00 |
| Value for price | 4.32 | 155 | 85.2% | 3.2% | 4.30 | +0.02 |
| Speed of service | 4.68 | 155 | 94.8% | 0.6% | 4.64 | +0.04 |
| Friendliness | 4.78 | 155 | 97.4% | 0.0% | 4.77 | +0.01 |
| Taste of food | 4.66 | 155 | 96.8% | 0.0% | 4.67 | -0.01 |
| Item availability | 4.72 | 155 | 95.5% | 1.3% | 4.72 | +0.00 |
| Cleanliness | 4.81 | 155 | 96.8% | 1.3% | 4.81 | +0.00 |
| Recommend intent | 4.66 | 155 | 91.6% | 1.3% | 4.68 | -0.02 |
| Return intent | 4.57 | 155 | 90.3% | 3.2% | 4.58 | -0.01 |
All ten rating questions, Bloomfield, n=155 completed interviews
Q3. On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your order today? 5 means excellent, 1 means poor.
Q7-a. Since this location became an Einstein Bros., has your satisfaction with your orders increased, decreased, or stayed about the same?
Themes coded from open-text answers to Q4, Q5 and the follow-up "what made you give it that score" questions. Multi-code, so shares do not total 100%.
| Post-conversion sample | 1,082 completed interviews. East Lansing 496, Ann Arbor 283, Rochester 148, Bloomfield 155. One Bloomfield record flagged as fraud was excluded. |
| Pre-conversion baseline | Bruegger's Detroit conversational survey, 140 sessions in the supplied export. 114 gave a usable overall rating. |
| Structured and open responses | The post-conversion surveys record answers as scale labels, bare integers, or free text in an "other" field depending on the location and question. All three were converted to the same 1 to 5 scale and counted together. The baseline survey is fully conversational, so ratings were read from the answer that followed each question, allowing for the one-row offset between an assistant question and the guest reply. |
| Free-text ratings | Where a baseline guest answered a rating question in words rather than numbers, the answer was classified onto the same scale. This lowered baseline means by between 0.00 and 0.23 points against a numbers-only reading, because guests who answer in words skew slightly less effusive than those who give a 5. The combined figure is used throughout, since dropping worded answers would discard up to half the base on some attributes. |
| Scale contamination | Answers carrying a scale that does not belong to the question, such as a likelihood label appearing in a satisfaction column, were excluded rather than recoded. 120 values were dropped on this basis, all at East Lansing. |
| Significance testing | Welch's t-test on the difference in means, with 95% confidence intervals. Changes are reported as real only where p is below 0.05. |
| Theme coding | Keyword coding of open-text answers, counted once per respondent rather than once per mention. A response can carry several themes, so shares do not total 100%. |
| Not weighted | Results are unweighted. Location bases differ substantially, so the four-location average leans toward East Lansing. |
| Location | Interviews | Most recent response |
|---|---|---|
| East Lansing | 496 | 2026-08-07 |
| Ann Arbor | 283 | 2026-08-04 |
| Rochester | 148 | 2026-08-07 |
| Bloomfield | 155 | 2026-08-07 |