Can I find a good Florida bagel at... Boynton Beach's Bagels &
Can I find a good Florida bagel at... Boynton Beach's Bagels &
Boynton Beach's go-to bagel place scratches the nostalgic itch.
Welcome to It’s A Shanda, one Northeastern Jew’s quest to find a decent bagel in Seattle (and beyond). If you’re interested in taking this journey with me, make sure you subscribe so you never miss a review. If you want to make sure I review any specific bagels (or want to let me know why I’m wrong), you can email me at seanmatthewkeeley@gmail.com.
In last week’s paid subscriber post, I discussed how much time I spent visiting my grandparents in Boynton Beach, Florida. There are a lot of fond memories of those times and one of them was the absolute dependency on bagels every morning.
I can’t say definitively that all of those bagels came from Bagels &, but I’m pretty sure most of them did. It was nearby and my grandparents talked about it the way you talk about the favorite places in your neighborhood.
While Flakowitz was where we’d go when we wanted a sit-down breakfast, Bagels & was where we’d pick up a dozen with some schmears.
I couldn’t find much about Bagel &’s history, besides their website, which read “We are a third-generation, family-owned restaurant” with two locations in Lake Worth and Boynton Beach. I did find a 2017 press release that noted they’re, in fact, a “fourth-generation, family-run business” so we’ll have to get to the bottom of this generational divide at some point.
But for now, the focus is less on the “&” and more on the “Bagels.” Let’s see how much of my appreciation for this Boyton Beach mainstay is nostalgia and how much is about how genuinely good the bagels are.
And if you want to know how I define a good bagel, you can find that here.
WHAT I ORDERED
Plain bagel as-is ($1.25)
Everything bagel with scallion cream cheese ($4.49)
THE EXPERIENCE
As I’d have hoped, showing up on a Sunday around 10 a.m. meant there were some lines to sift through. You had the line for the deli counter, the line for indoor seating, and the line for outdoor seating. While I’ve often complained about bagel place lines, the difference here was that the entire staff was powering through orders and seatings to get everyone set as fast as possible. What a novel concept!
Speaking of the deli counter, it was quintessential. Vats of schmears so deep you’ll never get to the bottom. Bagel baskets filled with all the flavors you’d expect (and none of the ones you wouldn’t). A menu featuring classics like chopped liver, nova lox, pickled herring, and stuffed cabbage.
We sat outside and the placemat full of local insurance broker and Realtor ads brought me right back. What happened to these? When did we decide we didn’t need to eat our meals on a flimsy piece of paper full of ads for local businesses?
I felt a little weird ordering my usual (plain bagel as-is and everything bagel with cream cheese) while sitting down but the server didn’t bat an eye. I can only imagine the convoluted and deranged orders that Jewish mothers have made over the years to these servers. They’ve seen things. This was nothing.
UPON FIRST GLANCE
Spying on the bagel baskets while waiting for my table, I thought the bagels looked on point. Sturdy, good size, good colors. And look, if you see that a bagel place is doing an egg everything bagel, you know they’re legit.
When I got my bagels, they came with a slice of orange and a piece of lettuce. The absolute height of Jewish delicatessen class.
TOP
The top of the plain bagel was a light golden brown. The bagel itself was slightly big and featured a large center. There was a slight crinkle to the touch. While it didn’t feature much in the way of blisters, there were some textural opportunities present.
The everything bagel, which was a similar slightly large size, was a darker golden brown on top. It was soft to the touch with whisps of crispness. The seed hand is pretty light on top, though there’s a (literal) flip side ahead regarding that.
BOTTOM
The bottom of the plain bagel was soft but firm. There was a nice brown ring running around the entire bottom.
The everything bagel bottom was very firm and slightly knockable. It also featured the rare strong seed hand, flipping the script on how these things usually work. It appeared that it was very sesame and poppy seed forward.
INSIDE/BITE
The plain bagel offered a very soft rip, revealing a great authentic bagel smell. The interior was mostly fluffy and made for a soft bite with some crinkles peppered throughout. There was a little doughiness to the interior but not in a way that detracted from the experience. I appreciated getting some solid “bagel flavor” from it as well.
The everything bagel offered some nice crispiness on the bite. The scallion cream cheese included some very large scallion bits and the flavor and texture really benefited from that. The bagel itself had good flavor and, coupled with the cream cheese, it made for a very enjoyable combo. I would have loved a little more texture on the bite but the flavors saved the day.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Back in Seattle, you can use a lot of bells and whistles to convince people that your bagels are better than they are. You can’t get away with that in Boynton Beach where your clientele is made up of Brooklyn and Queens lifers who ran out of patience two decades ago. So the fact that Bagel & has had such a dedicated customer base for so long speaks for itself. There’s more to it than just the bagels, but they hold their own. I’d be pretty shocked to find out there are better ones in the area.
Is It Good Enough For The Goys?
They better be! There’s an Einstein Bros. down the road and a bunch of Dunkins nearby. If they’re stopping there instead of Bagel & (or Flakowitz), that’s the definition of a shanda.
Is It Good Enough For Northeastern Jews?
They were good enough for my grandparents, Herb and Josie Levy, which says it all to me.
We return to the Pacific Northwest next week but if you have any Florida bagel recommendations for the next time I’m there, let me know in the comments!
MY SEATTLE BAGEL RANKINGS SO FAR (4/28/24)
Old Salt (Fremont]
Old Salt (Ballard)
Loxsmith (West Seattle)
Loxsmith (Beacon Hill)
Westman’s (Capitol Hill)
Westman’s (U District)
OUTSIDE SEATTLE BAGEL RANKINGS (4/14/24)
The Bagelry (Bellingham)
Howdy Bagel (Tacoma)
Coquette Bake Shop (Bainbridge Island)
Rubinstein Bagels (Redmond)
Good Bagels Cafe (Anacortes)
Mustard Seed Baking Co. (Stanwood)
Blazing Bagels (Redmond)
Otherside Bagel Co. (Bellingham)
Whidbey Island Bagel Factory (Mt. Vernon)
Woodinville Bagel Bakery (Woodinville)
Big Apple Bagels (Bellevue)
MY NEW YORK AREA BAGEL RANKINGS (12/11/23)
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Love. Every. Word. Again. 💜