Stop the presses… Bodo’s changes
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Charlottesville’s fastest-serving but slowest-evolving bagel chain has recently made a move. After 18 years of accepting only cash and checks, Bodo’s Bagels has begun accepting credit cards for purchases.
Signs went up last week at all three locations announcing the change.
“The world’s going plastic– we’re trying to get with the times,” says owner Brian Fox. “The Corner store reallypushed this because so many students carry only plastic.”
Fox says that he had resisted the change because serving inexpensive food requires speed, and old-fashioned card scanners bogged down the transaction. The new machines are “pretty instantaneous,” says Fox, adding that sales under $25 require no signature.
And while Bodo’s alters its strictly scripted regimen in this way and others– remember how the place served warm brown water until switching to “BoJoe” coffee in the mid-1990s?– certain things remain the same.
For instance, buyers of a dozen bagels are often surprised to learn that they can get just three of the dozen sliced in half. Perhaps Bodo’s has yet to invest in that $20 miracle known as the Bagel Guillotine. In case anyone thinks the ten-year effort to open the Corner location has over-taxed the owner’s energy or that he’s indifferent to the fact that self-slicing bagels is known as a key reason for Sunday morning emergency room visits, again Fox pleads speed.
“Some of our services are limited because of speed,” says Fox. “In order to be a good value, we have to be fast, and in the time it takes to slice a dozen bagels, we can make three sandwiches.”
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