Can I find a good Seattle bagel at... Blazing Bagels

The things I eat for this newsletter...

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.

Those who read my review of Dingfelder’s bagels remember that we learned they buy their dough from Blazing Bagels and then prepared it in-house. You might also remember that Dingfelder’s has, so far in my rankings, the worst bagel in Seattle. So that didn’t exactly bode well in my mind when it came to eventually reviewing Blazing Bagels. However, I am nothing if not a dedicated Seattle bagel provocateur. And so here we are.

The story of Blazing Bagels is as much a legal thriller as it is a bagel journey. As the legend goes, Dennis Ballen was laid off from his office supplies sales job around 2000. To make ends meet, he started buying bagels from a local company and, according to BB’s website, “hired a handful of senior citizens to push bagels around to more businesses.” Not happy with the quality of the bagels he was purchasing, he learned how to make his own and opened the first Blazing Bagels in Redmond in 2002.

In order to get customers to sample his schmears, he put an employee on the street corner, draped in a sandwich board that read"Fresh Bagels -- Now Open." That marketing maneuver, featuring “Dancing Dan,” caught the attention of Redmond’s city council, which told him to shut the sandwich signage down, citing a city ordinance that prohibited portable signs that could pose traffic, safety, or aesthetic issues.

Ballen challenged that ordinance, arguing it was an unconstitutional infringement on his right to commercial speech. He won in federal court as well as in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In response to the loss, Redmond quickly passed a new ordinance, banning “animated signs” that rotate or move.

Redmond in the 2000s sounds like a real dork of a city.

With his legal issues behind him, Ballen set about expanding his bagel empire to Western Washington cities that wouldn’t be such suburban sticks in the mud. In 2009, Blazing Bagels expanded to Bellevue as well as a SoDo location just south of T-Mobile Park (then Safeco Field).

By 2011, Blazing Bagels was selling directly to retail shops and wholesalers. And in 2020, they opened their fourth location in U-Village or Ravenna, depending on who you ask, completing (for now) their local domination of the bagel scene. Check out their video below to see how they would put it:

Dubbing itself the place with the “best bagels East of New York,” Blazing Bagels offers a very playful point of view, puts a focus on local ingredients, and boasts a whopping 35 different flavors of bagels to choose from (including novelties like Halloween bagels and Fourth of July bagels). While you’re bound to find Jewish deli staples like pastrami and corned beef, you’ll also get non-traditional options such as the bagel dog and ham sandwiches.

I think I can best sum up Blazing Bagels’ whole schtick with this image, the only time in my life I’ve ever seen a pig used to promote Jewish food.

By all accounts it seems as though Ballen has built a local empire that’s dedicated to serving their community, giving back to charities and good causes, and trying to offer good food to those who can find it.

Ultimately, however, we’re here to find out if their bagel is worth the visit. So let’s find out.

And if you want to know how I define a good bagel, you can find that here.

WHAT I ORDERED

• Untoasted everything bagel with chive cream cheese.

• Untoasted plain bagel as-is.

THE EXPERIENCE

I visited the newest Blazing Bagels in Ravenna and it immediately reminded me of many of the suburban bagel places I’d see in New Jersey. Not the old hole-in-the-walls with loose baskets of bagels and bottles of Yoo-hoo. More like the newer ones that take on a chain-like feel and mentality.

The first thing I saw was a large “Best Bagels East of New York” mural on the side of the building. After my brain did the homework on that, I had a good sense of what I was walking into. The dad-joke energy is strong in this place.

I don’t know what was in this building before Blazing Bagels but I have to imagine it was a fast-food restaurant of some kind. The entire setup screamed McDonald’s in terms of layout. Now that I know more about the Redmond location, I imagine that’s a bit more of an “authentic” experience by comparison. Still, the staff was friendly and the service was quick.

UPON FIRST GLANCE

First impressions were not great. The bagels were very shiny and very smooth. I could almost see my reflection in the plain one. I didn’t know bagels could do that.

A lack of imperfection might be a sign of quality for many foods, but when it comes to bagels, the “imperfections” are everything. It seemed as if these bagels had been genetically engineered to be “perfect” and uniform, which is a very bad sign.

TOP

As noted, the plain bagel’s top was extremely shiny and uniform, lacking any kind of character in the form of bubbles, cracks, or crevices. This thing is as smooth as a baby’s bottom, which was just as disturbing to type as it was to notice. The brownish color was at least on the right side of where you want to see it.

The everything bagel was similar to the plain but with a solid seasoning distribution (but no salt!).

INSIDE/BITE

The best way I can describe the sensation of biting into the plain bagel is “plasticky.” It was pretty unpleasant. The interior of the bagel was soft, at least, and did offer that quintessential bagel smell, so credit is due on that. However, because the exterior crust is so flimsy and crunch-less, the whole thing just fell flat. Literally. There was also a slight aftertaste that reminded me of bad bread. Not great!

Biting into the everything bagel, I was struck by the way the whole thing collapsed in my mouth as soon as I bit into it. Because the bagel lacks crunch (aside from one tiny area that must have been in the right spot in the oven) or any kind of exterior structure to hold the soft interior in place, you just end up with a mouthful of cream cheese and mush. Speaking of, the chive cream cheese delivers some flavor, but not in a strong way. Again, there was a strange aftertaste from the bagel that I found pretty displeasing.

BOTTOM

Both bagels featured a cornmeal ring of doom and the lack of any discernable crunch or firmness pretty much aligned with my expectations after that. The everything bagel did have some seasoning on the bottom half, which I do appreciate. Always nice to know you can slice an everything bagel and still get some of that flavor on the bottom half.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Well, my worst fears from the Dingfelder’s experience were confirmed. I take no pleasure in reporting it, given that Blazing Bagels is a local company that made good and seems to do a lot of positive things in their communities. Perhaps my experience would be improved by visiting the Redmond location, but as-is, this was a pretty subpar bagel.

If you put a gun to my head and said I have to eat a bagel from either Blazing Bagels or Dingfelder’s, I think I would say BB. Their bagels at least have slightly more oomph to them. So I guess there’s at least that?

Is It Good Enough For The Goys?

I’m gonna level with you and say that Blazing Bagels bums me out because I think it’s exactly the kind of bagel that goys eat and assume it’s what a good bagel is supposed to be. So while they’re technically good enough because plenty of people are eating these bagels, I would hope people try out some of the other spots in town to broaden their horizons.

Is It Good Enough For Northeastern Jews?

MY SEATTLE BAGEL RANKINGS SO FAR

1. Bagel Oasis

2. Oxbow

3. Loxsmith

4. Old Salt

5. Rubinstein

6. Zylberschtein’s

7. Rachel’s

8. Westman’s

9. Eltana

10. Blazing Bagels

11. Dingfelder’s

Thanks for actually reading this far. If you enjoyed my Seattle bagel review and want to read more of them, make sure you’re subscribed to It’s A Shanda. Know someone in the Greater Seattle Area (or beyond) who would appreciate way-too-detailed reviews of local bagels? Forward the link their way.

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