Second Schmears: Revisiting Howdy Bagel
Second Schmears: Revisiting Howdy Bagel
The Howdy hype has only gotten bigger since opening their storefront
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In the total time that I’ve stood in line to eat a Howdy Bagel bagel, I could have watched Oppenheimer and had time to spare. Three visits in now, I’m at three hours and 45 minutes. To be fair, my average wait time came down with this most recent visit, but it’s hard to separate that from the overall experience that comes with eating their food, and I find myself a bit perplexed about how to write about it all.
Because I have a bagel problem, I got up early on Saturday and made the drive to Tacoma (which, to be fair, was pretty smooth that time of day) to arrive at Howdy Bagel in time for their 8:00 a.m. opening. I figured, like with Mt. Bagel, I’d see a smattering of people waiting outside by the time I got there. Turns out, as I pulled up at 7:55 a.m., there were already 35 people in line.
Howdy Bagel opened their brick-and-mortar storefront at the end of May and the extreme farmers market and pop-up lines that garnered them so much hype continued unabated. That’s a big part of the reason why I’ve waited so long to return. There are only so many times a person can wait that long to eat some cream cheese.
I was concerned with learning two things on this (technically third) Howdy Bagel excursion:
Are the lines a construct of the hype or of their lowkey food preparation style? Or both? And is there a breaking point for customers who just want to grab a bagel and coffee to start their day?
Now that they’re settled, how good are these bagels?
The line whittled down fairly quickly and I was at the front door by around 8:20 a.m. I was initially spooked by the menu outside the door, which had three of its seven bagel flavors crossed out. On a Saturday morning 20 minutes into opening? What the hell? (Turns out that was the previous day’s menu, so, crisis averted).
When I opened the door and stepped inside, I have to admit that I was genuinely confused. I saw six people behind the counter but it seemed like only two of them were actually doing something. The bagel baskets were barely full. All of the seating was filled with people waiting for their orders. The cashier was making genial small talk with the customer in front of them as if there weren’t 30-40 people waiting outside at the moment.
In the back, I could see that the kitchen crew was hustling. And everyone working there was incredibly friendly and affable. So I’m not trying to say they were all just putzing around. But I have to say that the energy inside Howdy Bagel did not seem to match the demand that was waiting outside.
No moment crystallized this better than when the cashier announced that they were taking a bathroom break, left the register, and didn’t mention it to any of the other people behind the counter. For two solid minutes, we all just stood there. Waiting. Wondering. Wishing.
Again, to be fair, someone eventually noticed and stepped toward the register, and she was extremely friendly and kind. I placed my order and ended up getting it in an extremely speedy amount of time. I realized at that moment that most of the people here were ordering Howdy’s extravagant bagel sandwiches, all of which required more prep time.
Look, I don’t run a food business and I don’t know the first thing about everything that comes with that. But I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing something. I left wondering if it’s a Tacoma thing. Are people just super chill and laid back there in a way that makes Seattle seem like New York City? To be fair, I didn’t get the sense many other people in line were bothered by the state of things. Was this a case of my Northeasternness and the appreciation of “annoyed efficiency” that made this rub me the wrong way? (I don’t seem to be the only one, at least.)
I left that day feeling concerned about Howdy Bagel if I’m being totally honest. They made a solid bagel, as you’ll read below. But it feels to me like they’re relying on a hype train that is going to eventually stop running. It’s early days yet and Tacomans are still more than happy to line up for a good bagel, if for no other reason than there is literally no other game in town.
But how many times can you really wait in line for an hour just to get a bagel and coffee? How often do any of us have time to stand there for an hour for a lunch sandwich? Is there a point where a business looks at its customers waiting for an unreasonable time and decides to adjust accordingly?
Maybe the person who just wants to grab a quick bagel isn’t their customer, at least not yet. All I know is that hype goes away for everything eventually and then you’re left with just your product and your service. I’m curious to see if Howdy Bagel will be ready when that day comes.
*steps off high horse*
But how were the bagels?
WHAT I ORDERED
Everything bagel with scallion cream cheese.
Plain bagel as-is.
As with all previous Second Schmear reviews, we keep things fairly simple this time around. I’ll review this version of the visit and compare it to the first trip to find out what might have changed.
Let’s start with the plain bagel, which was a really rich golden brown and boasted lots of good-looking blisters. I can’t say for sure but I think this bagel was a little bigger than the previous version. It also had a more classic hole in the middle. The top of the bagel felt soft to the touch though I got the sense there was some crackling ahead from different spots. The bottom of the bagel was very soft, which was different from the crispy one I got in March. No cornmeal ring of doom was detected.
Ripping into the bagel I did indeed note some crispiness. The inside had a strong sourdough-y smell that almost verged on pizza crust. On the bite, there was indeed a slight crunch with little pops here and there as you bit into the exterior. The interior was doughy and a little dense but in a good way. Curiously, I noted that the plain was “pillowy but not dense” last time and had more of a traditional bagel smell.
It’s a very sturdy bagel that probably holds up well under the weight of all those sandwiches, which makes sense. All in all, I thought this was a very good bagel and I believe an improvement on the initial one I got.
The everything bagel was much lighter than the plain one, perhaps due to being baked less in order to keep the topping from burning. The top and bottom were extremely soft and lacked much crispness, which is in line with the previous version. The seed hand was pretty strong and very uniform, though lacking in salt, which is also in line with the prior version.
The bite confirmed the overall softness of the bagel and that, especially compared to the plain, it was a little underbaked. Unlike last time, when the cream cheese was extremely flavorful, this version was a bit bland and lacked a scallion taste. Coupled with the lack of salt, it ended up being a surprisingly flavorless everything bagel. As I ate, the lack of textural structure meant that it flattened out, losing the architecture of the bagel.
WHAT I SAID LAST TIME
“I ate both bagels in one go, which doesn’t happen very often these days. And if I lived in Tacoma, I’d probably be keeping a close eye on their pop-ups and storefront opening. But if Howdy Bagel were in Seattle, I’d probably have them somewhere around the level of Rubinstein. That’s still pretty good, but I wouldn’t say it was ultimately “wait in line for two hours” good.”
WHAT I THOUGHT THIS TIME
Like so many bagel places in the region, consistency appears to be an issue here. If we’re just talking about the plain bagel, I would definitely consider moving Howdy up the ranks and saying it’s a worthy contender in the Seattle-area space. But if we’re also considering the everything with cream cheese, that brings things back down a bit. Interestingly, it’s an issue that also plagues The Bagelry, which will remain the top pick outside of Seattle, but both places have room for improvement.
Circling back to the line issue, I am grappling with a lot of different thoughts. On one hand, it’s literally the only decent bagel I’m aware of for 30 miles, so I completely understand the demand. On the other hand, simply from a bagel perspective, I don’t think I would say it’s worth waiting 30 minutes for, let alone an hour. On the third hand (just go with it), I haven’t tried the sandwiches and I can see how they are a perfect engine for social media foodporn that creates an ouroboros of demand and need to show others that you’ve been there. On the fourth hand, I think there’s a limit to how many times people will wait in that line, especially if all they want is a bagel with cream cheese.
The bagel line wait is a topic I’m going to explore more in Wednesday’s post for paid subscribers. Suffice it to say that I continue to struggle with finding the fine line when it comes to the bagel line.
MY SEATTLE BAGEL RANKINGS SO FAR (8/6/23)
OUTSIDE SEATTLE BAGEL RANKINGS
The Bagelry (Bellingham)
Howdy Bagel (Tacoma)
Coquette Bake Shop (Bainbridge Island)
Otherside Bagel Co. (Bellingham)
Whidbey Island Bagel Factory (Mt. Vernon, Whidbey Island)
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? Please forward the link their way.
Thanks for making the trek down south, Sean! Honestly, we love reading your reviews. It makes us want to be better bagel makers and just gets us more excited about bagels in general ;)
Yearning to be your #1 outside of Seattle,
the Howdy Bagel Boyz.