The existential threat of H&H Bagels

There's a creeping menace sweeping across the country disgused as something that no longer exists.

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Looks so authentic! Credit: H&H Bagels

While writing about my visit to a Tampa bagel shop last week, I came across several local reports about how an iconic New York bagel shop was coming to town. That bagel shop was H&H Bagels, long considered one of the best bagel places in NYC and the world.

Featured in an episode of Seinfeld, referenced in Sex & The City, and namechecked in You’ve Got Mail, Entourage, How I Met Your Mother, and The Office, H&H became pop culture shorthand for great bagels. The news that an H&H store was opening nearby meant that you were about to be bestowed with greatness in the form of circular bread.

However…

As tends to happen in America, a good idea can remain pure only so long before it’s commodified beyond recognition. In recent years, H&H has corporatized and moved into expansion mode. By 2023, there were plans for stores in Florida, California, Washington, DC, Virginia, Illinois, and Connecticut. Their website references new outposts in Tennessee, California, and Texas as well.

And where there’s franchising and expansion, you can always trust that quality is going to take a tumble. That was certainly my experience when I visited the H&H on the Upper West Side and was met with an unremarkable bagel that no self-respecting Northeastern Jew would ever brag about. You’d be hard-pressed to pick it out of a lineup that included Einstein Bros., Bruegger’s, or Noah’s.

There was a time when H&H was a bagel worth putting on your TV show, but those days are dead.

Plain bagel from my H&H visit.

I’ve long shared my disdain for national chains and the role they’ve played in democratizing mediocrity, convincing millions of people that craptastic bread circles are the standard by which all bagels should be measured. And make no mistake, H&H Bagels has become one of these.

The company’s national expansion is in full force, and it recently came across my Bluesky feed in an odd way that summed up all my concerns. I was tagged in a post by North Carolina radio host and podcaster Joe Ovies. I’ve chatted with Joe in the past about Syracuse sports, but this time, he was worked up about the impending arrival of H&H and how having such an iconic bagel would mess up local bagel snobbery. I had to break his heart in a most indelicate way.

Out of that interaction, I took note of the similarities between these announcements and the ones I’d seen in Tampa. There was so much talk about “the most iconic name in bagels” coming to town and how exciting it was to finally have “real,” “authentic” bagels.

A Google News search revealed similar rundowns about the “iconic bagel shop” coming soon to other markets. In fact, according to Chain Store Age, “the bagel chain has reached 70 confirmed franchise locations in its development pipeline.”

I don’t blame the headline writers; they’re working with what they’ve got. And as far as they’re concerned, the assembly-line bagels that will fill the baskets the day those regional stores open are the same ones that used to wow New Yorkers.

I don’t know what would be worse. That so many people are going to line up for these bagels and come away thinking New Yorkers must be crazy to think these are so good, or those same people rushing to social media to brag about having finally gotten their hands on these “iconic” bagels and that they lived up to the hype.

My beige everything bagel from H&H.

So what’s the point of all this? Well, do you know people who live in the aforementioned cities and states? Do you have loved ones texting you links to these stories and getting excited about going? Do you care about America’s future and its ability to appreciate a good bagel instead of an underbaked factory-line sphere?

Then do yourself, me, and your ancestors a favor and let people know what they’re really getting themselves into. Don’t let them get excited. Don’t let them buy into the hype. Do not let the gentiles in your life go gentle into that good night.

Anywhere where H&H has expanded or is planning to expand, I guarantee there’s a local bagel maker doing things the right way. Using fresh ingredients. Hand-rolling. Baking from scratch. Making schmears in their kitchen. Their bagels might not measure up to the great ones of New York or New Jersey (or even Seattle), but at least it’s an authentic experience.

I’ll take that over a corporate chain bagel any day, no matter the name on the window or how many TV shows they’ve been in.

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