The bagel shop that made me

Eli's Hot Bagels remains the standard by which I measure all bagels.

The overcast sky is somehow indelibly part of the Eli’s Hot Bagels experience.

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When I think of Eli’s Hot Bagels, I have two competing memories from my teenage days.

One takes place on a classic overcast New Jersey fall morning. I’m in my Sunday best. A worn-too-long Mets baseball cap with a frayed bill. A Big Johnson t-shirt I had no business wearing in public but this was the mid-90s. Umbro shorts, despite not playing soccer in years. Ratty flip-flops that required me to use my toes to hold them in place because the rubber piece connecting the strap to the shoe was falling apart.

I’ve just arrived at Eli’s Hot Bagels in Matawan, NJ. Or maybe it was in Aberdeen, NJ. It was always a little confusing as to which was which, and sometimes it seemed like you could be in both towns at once.

Eli’s was located in a classic New Jersey retail strip, a collection of three or four local businesses buttressed by a gas station on one side and an aging two-screen movie theater on the other. The Park Place Diner loomed across the street.

Most of the pictures online show Eli’s after their remodel but in my mind, I’m standing in line in the original version. The fridge where I grab my customary Yoo-hoo chocolate beverage hums loudly and probably much older than I am. There’s a giant mural on one of the walls of Eli, presumably, smiling as he pulls a fresh batch of bagels out of the oven (for reasons that elude me, they got rid of it in their remodel). In front of me was a counter topped with baskets of steaming bagels. Above is a classic deli/pizza place menu with red letters that you can mix and match but no one has touched in years. Behind that, a full view into the kitchen and the ovens where bagels continue to roll out all day long.

I’m four or five people deep because there’s always a line of four or five people at Eli’s. I’m not worried about them running out of my chosen bagels, that’s just not a thing, especially on a weekend morning. And even if a basket looked low, I knew that it would be “refreshed” soon enough by whatever was currently baking in those ovens.

When I lived in Chicago, a Lyft driver once asked me what I missed about living back East. I told him that I missed the “annoyed efficiency” of East Coast delis, pizza places, and bodegas. That sense that, even if the store is empty, the person behind the counter had no time for you and your nonsense, so you better get your order out ASAP, so they can conclude this entire transaction within seconds. They’re not mad at you, they just have better things to do than continue dealing with you. I came to appreciate its ruthless effectiveness and it is perhaps why the “Seattle Freeze” doesn’t bother me.

I wouldn’t say that Eli’s staff exemplified that experience, but they certainly had a similar style. This was not the place to hem and haw over what your dozen bagels would consist of. You were expected to know what you wanted and to order accordingly, so they could get on with things.

And so when it was my turn, I knew what to do, how to do it, and how to get out of the way. They had things to do and so did I. Eat bagels.

When I think about them, Eli’s bagels are warm and fresh. The tops are crackly, the bottoms are firm and crunchy, and the interiors are soft and pillowy. It’s entirely possible I’ve convinced myself they were better than they actually were, but it’s my memory all the same.

They don’t use this logo anymore but they 100% should.

My second memory happens much later at night. Or perhaps more specifically, much earlier in the morning.

When you’re a teenager in the Central NJ suburbs, your nighttime options are limited. Most of our nights were spent loitering in the Dairy Queen parking lot or deciding if we were going to drive to Point Pleasant or Seaside Heights. Whatever it is we ended up doing, many of those nights ended the same way. With a late-night (or early-morning) stop at Eli’s.

One of the most wonderful things about Eli’s was that they were essentially open 24 hours a day. Because they made bagels for grocery markets and other retailers, they were up in the wee hours baking for the next day’s deliveries. That meant that even if you happened to pull up at 1:00 a.m., which we were wont to do, something was piping fresh and ready to be eaten.

And I can still picture us showing up in that desolate parking lot in my friend’s beat-up Ford Taurus. Strolling up towards the bagel shop with its steamed-up windows. Opening the doors to see what golden brown treasures await us. And knowing that we have our pick of whichever ones we want. We were kings.

I can picture grabbing a Snapple out of the fridge, ordering an everything bagel with scallion cream cheese, and sitting down at one of the tiny tables to enjoy my late-night feast. My friend Mike would regale me with his theories on how to maximize your schmears (order a second bagel and scoop the cream cheese that falls out of the first one onto that). We would devour everything in front of us and head home, finally feeling like we’d accomplished something of value with our evening.

Those are the memories I carry with me. It’s funny how the visual cues and sense memories carry as much weight as the bagels themselves.

Sadly, Eli’s no longer in that spot, closing the doors on their Matawan/Aberdeen shop in 2022. The good news, however, is that they live on in nearby Freehold, NJ where they’re still charging just $1.20 for a bagel (Seattle could never…).

I haven’t visited yet and there’s a good chance that I never will. What’s done is done and Eli’s and their bagels live in my memory now. They act as the cornerstone of my review process and the basis for what I consider a good bagel. But of course, they also come seeded with nostalgia.

I suppose every bagel I’ve eaten since is an attempt to recapture the sensations of an Eli’s Hot Bagels stop. It seems impossible to do, but I know I’ll keep trying.

Thanks for actually reading this far. Know someone in the Greater Seattle Area (or beyond) who would appreciate way-too-detailed reviews of local bagels? Please forward the link their way.