Can I find a good Seattle bagel at... Bagelbop
Pike Place Market is known for its fish and produce. But what about the bagels?
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On Saturday, August 17, 1907, Pike Place Market officially opened. It wasn’t until that November that the Main Arcade, the first building at the Market, was open to the public. In 1909, the Athenian Inn opened its doors. And by 1916, the market expanded into the Economy Market Building, which was initially used as stables for the farmers' horses. By the time 1937 rolled around, the iconic Public Market Clock Sign currently featured on your Instagram feed was installed.
Over the years, there have been plenty of proposals to end, remake, or tear down the Market. Each time, they were defeated. In the early 1970s, 1.5 acres of the Market were listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the entire area was included in a historic preservation zone to ensure that it would continue as it had for decades.
Today, Pike Place Market is a tourist destination where people flock from all over the world to stand in a long line at a very small Starbucks. I suppose they also come to see the fish fly, to sit where Tom Hanks sat, and to find a place for their chewing gum.
I don’t imagine many of them come for the bagels. And yet, that option exists in the form of Bagelbop, a tiny stand located inside the Economy Market, just around the corner from all those flying fish.
The stand was originally occupied by Seattle Bagel Bakery. However, around 2021, ownership changed hands and it became Bagelbop. According to their initial proposal, the plan was to infuse the local bagel scene with some Korean-inspired options, like spicy pork bulgogi bagels, seaweed rice-wrapped sandwiches, and kimchi sides. That sounds pretty fascinating and something I’d love to try but somewhere along the way they simply decided to stick to the hits. Now their go-to options are bagel breakfast sandwiches, though they do seem to specialize in bagel dogs and crab melts.
Presumably, as part of the sale arrangement, Bagelbop continues to exclusively serve Seattle Bagel Bakery bagels. That company moved to wholesale and retail operations, so the only other place you’re likely to see them is in your local grocery store.
As for what makes a Seattle Bagel Bakery bagel different from the rest? Per their website, “what sets us apart from the rest is that we kettle boil all of our bagels before they go into the oven. While it may sound strange to drop a ring of dough into a kettle of boiling water, this gives the crisp, outer shell that is essential to a bagel. This traditional method also helps seal the moisture in the dough, giving the inside of the bagel a chewy, dense pull-a-part texture.”
Over 10 million people visit Pike Place Market every year. Are they getting the true Seattle bagel experience from their visit? Let’s find out.
And if you want to know how I define a good bagel, you can find that here.
WHAT I ORDERED
“Hot & Fluffy” everything bagel with plain cream cheese.
Untoasted plain bagel as is.
THE EXPERIENCE
As a tried and true Seattle introvert, my favorite kind of Pike Place Market is the empty kind. Rolling up at 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday gave me exactly what I wanted. While the produce stands and fishmongers went about their business setting up for the day, I strolled over to Bagelbop just as they were putting out the morning’s bagels. It was perhaps the first red flag when I realized they were quite literally removing the bagels from bags and placing them in the window.
Admittedly I didn’t know much about Bagelbop when I arrived, so when I realized their bagels were exclusively from Seattle Bagel Bakery, which I knew to be a store-only brand, that was red flag number two.
I also surmised quickly that because these are store bagels, they are going to need to be toasted. As I got closer, I noticed a sign that read “How do you like your bagel toasted?” with two options. “Crunchy?” or “Hot & Fluffy?” I can’t say those are options I’ve ever been presented with before. Red flag number three.
And look, I also realized that this is a very small business striving to survive. They’re doing their best. But like Billy Shakespeare said, “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” So I must play my part.
UPON FIRST GLANCE
For the record, I got my everything bagel “Hot & Fluffy” because I figured it was the lesser of two evils. I did ask for the plain bagel as-is, which confused the heck out of the nice woman behind the counter. Still, she handed me that cold and lifeless bread circle all the same.
Have you ever eaten Lender's Bagels? If you’ve ever bought bagels in a grocery store you probably have. They’re the scourge of the bagel world because they’ve convinced entire generations of American goys that bagels should be bland, doughy rings of nothingness.
That’s what these bagels reminded me of right off the bat. And I should not be surprised that SBB’s website mentions Lender’s Bagels as a kind-of inspiration since they are alike in so many ways, from consistency to smell to taste. Or lack thereof.
TOP
Soft. That’s the only way I can describe the tops of both bagels. They might look decently cooked from the coloring but there wasn’t a crispness or crunch for miles. These things were soft and rubbery all around.
There were slight signs of blisters and imperfections that might allude to some kind of texture, but I couldn’t detect any on touch or bite.
The seasoning distribution on the everything bagel was fairly uneven and didn’t include salt. So talk about adding insult to injury.
BOTTOM
Again, while it might look like the brown ring on the bottom of the bagel portends a firm or crunchy exterior, this thing was as soft as a Los Angeleno in 40-degree weather. No cornmeal ring of doom to speak of but I’m not sure that would have mattered at this point.
INSIDE/BITE
Biting into the cold plain bagel was as depressing as you might imagine. There was a nostalgic quality to the bite but not a good one. It reminded me of those terrible Lender’s Bagels I’d eaten as a kid. No flavor. No texture. Just sustenance for the sake of it.
These kinds of bagels have a weirdly specific smell, too. It’s fairly unpleasant and hard to describe. It’s not the iconic bagel smell and it’s not that sourdough smell we tend to get a lot in Seattle. It’s a strange processed smell. Like the smell of something mass-produced in a factory. Something unnatural.
Because I got the everything bagel “Hot & Fluffy,” that meant the cream cheese got warm and became very oozy. While that might be enjoyable for sturdy cream cheese, this generic cream cheese lacked stability, texture, and flavor. So when I bit into the bagel, it was just one big gelatinous mess. A flavorless bagel full of goopy, flavorless cream cheese. I don’t know how you can make an everything bagel with cream cheese taste like nothing but here we are.
There was nothing enjoyable about eating either of these bagels.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Again, I feel bad because this is ultimately a small business and I’m just some schmuck from New Jersey with a big mouth. But man, this one was rough. Ultimately, I think if I’m really directing my sentiments anywhere, they’re less aimed at Bagelbop and more at Seattle Bagel Bakery.
I had been considering a “fun” review option for this newsletter could be to review all of the local bagels sold in Seattle grocery stores. But now that I’ve had most of them (Macrina, SBB, and Blazing Bagels), I think that might be some kind of sadomasochistic self-flagellation.
I really didn’t think I’d be able to find a more unappetizing bagel than Blazing Bagels in Seattle. And yet, here we are.
Let us never speak of this again.
Is It Good Enough For The Goys?
The idea that millions of people come to Seattle and some of them leave thinking these are, as the sign proclaims, “Seattle’s best bagels,” bums me out to no end.
My general advice for anyone who visits Seattle is always to consider stepping outside of the usual tourist spots to see what makes the city great. We’re so much more than Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, and the Waterfront. You’ll appreciate your time here infinitely more by venturing elsewhere and exploring the options.
The same, it seems, can be said for Seattle bagels as well.
Is It Good Enough For Northeastern Jews?
Jesus Christ, no. You’d be better off getting Safeway bagels.
MY SEATTLE BAGEL RANKINGS SO FAR
Bagelbop
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You’re doing God’s work with these reviews.
as a Jersey-Girl-in-Exile, I need to know where in NJ are you from? ps I currently live in an almost bagel desert in Olympia; when I do make it up north, I am required to bring bagels home from Bagel Oasis (until you find a better bagel place ...).