Can I find a good Tacoma bagel at... Howdy Bagel

Can a bagel truly be worth a two-hour wait?

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 ensure I review any specific bagels (or want to let me know why I’m wrong), you can email me at seanmatthewkeeley@gmail.com.

I have literally never waited longer for a bagel in my entire life than I have for Howdy Bagel.

But we’ll come back to that.

Remember when everyone started baking bread during the pandemic? Jake Carter and Daniel Blagovich took it a step further and turned that impromptu hobby into a whole dang business.

Bagels won out in a “bagels or donuts” debate and Howdy Bagel was born as a pop-up and subscription service in early 2021. While they started cooking in SoDo, they soon moved down to Tacoma, a veritable bagel desert, to boost their business into overdrive. However, that also led to some particularly long drives as well.

“At that point, we had gotten into the Proctor Farmers Market, but we were still baking in Seattle,” Blagovich told Eater Seattle. “So we were getting up at 2 a.m. to drive to Seattle, then driving the bagels all the way back to Tacoma, and it just became too much.”

Howdy says they put their focus on giving their bagels plenty of time to settle, with the slow yeast fermentation process taking two to three days.

“It’s a very human process, which is very cool. I love whenever you’re eating bread, or a food that has a lot of love in it,” Carter told South Sound Magazine. “There’s a lot of love and time that’s gone into it. We are really excited to be able to share a product that we’re really proud of, and taken a lot of time to develop.”

Eventually, they found a commercial kitchen space to call home in The City of Destiny and planted a flag as Tacoma’s most sought-after bagel. Their reputation grew quickly thanks to appearances at the Proctor Farmers Market and other pop-ups with a menu that featured open-faced sandwiches full of lox, meats, and interesting spreads.

The natural progression now was to find a storefront shop.

The news dropped in spring 2022 that Howdy Bagel would soon open at 5421 South Tacoma Way. However, the planned opening was pushed back. Now, it sounds like a grand opening could be here by summer 2023.

In the meantime, your best bet for finding Howdy Bagel is to keep an eye on their sparse pop-up schedule. But be warned, a large contingent of the Greater Tacoma Region is also doing the same. It’s not uncommon to wait an hour, or even two or three, for a shot at one of their bagels.

Do epically long waits mean epically good bagels? Let’s find out.

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

WHAT I ORDERED

• Everything bagel with scallion cream cheese.

• Plain bagel with plain cream cheese.

THE EXPERIENCE

The first time I tried to get a bagel from Howdy Bagel, I failed. I planned on waiting for their storefront to open but found myself with some free time on a day when they had a pop-up at Proctor Farmers Market. Seeing that they planned the pop-up for 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., I figured if I got there by 11 a.m. that should be more than enough time to grab some bagels and then explore the area.

How wrong I was. By the time I arrived, the line was a solid 75-people deep and moving at a snail’s pace. After waiting for 45 minutes, we were told they were down to 30 bagels and there were still around 30 people ahead of me. They ran out well before I got there and I came to realize that these bagels were in demand in a way that I had not comprehended.

I soon found out they were doing a special pop-up a week later at a Tacoma brewery. This time, I would not be denied. Knowing that the pop-up was from 6:00-9:00 p.m., I made sure I was there at 5:55 p.m. And yet, even that was way later than I should have gotten there. I couldn’t even see the front of the line from where I started so I knew this was once again going to be a test of the human spirit to eat schmears.

While waiting in line, I heard multiple bar patrons wonder aloud, “All this for a bagel?” I couldn’t disagree with them necessarily, except that I was beginning to wonder if these insane lines portended a bagel that was about to blow my mind. Was I about to taste the Mt. Bagel of Tacoma? Was I going to find myself driving to Tacoma once a month to wait in line for hours because the bagel was truly worth it? Everything and anything suddenly seemed possible.

Two hours later(!!), I finally placed my order. They had already started running out of some ingredients and sandwiches (the brisket bagel sandwich was a particular winner). However, my mainstays were still available. I had to order both bagels with schmear because they didn’t want to sell as-is bagels out of respect for all of the people still in line.

The crew of five running the booth was extremely friendly and welcoming, and they made the long wait feel worth it in that respect. But of course, it was all going to come down to the bagels.

Bagels, I should note, that I had now waited an aggregate of three hours to eat. Fair or not, I have to admit that my expectations were through the roof.

UPON FIRST GLANCE

I had planned on taking my bagels back to Seattle for my usual review process but since it was closing in on 8:30 p.m. by the time I got them, I decided to order a beer, find a seat, and do the taste test right then and there.

Unwrapping the bagels, I found them to be slightly on the smaller side. I wouldn’t go as far as to say they rivaled Eltana’s minuscule bagels, but they were definitely a little tinier than I would normally expect.

Both bagels looked golden brown in the best way and the bubbling and crackles on the plain bagel were clear.

This was already apparent to me from seeing all of their bagels at the pop-up stand but their seeding hand was extremely strong, which is not a problem as far as I’m concerned.

TOP

The top of the plain bagel was crisp to the touch with a lot of crackles. There were some interesting divots on the top of the bagel as well that implied some very crunchy bites ahead. The bubbles extended not just all over the top but all over the bagel itself, which I took as a good sign.

As for the everything bagel, the aforementioned strong seed hand ensured that every bite would have some flavor, though they went with the salt-less approach. This one was fairly soft to touch on the top and didn’t seem to have much crispness to it.

BOTTOM

The plain bagel’s bottom was very brown and very crisp. To the touch, it was firm but with a little bit of give. Not the hardened bottom that ends up being super-crunchy, but there seemed to be a balance there. Also, no cornmeal ring of doom was to be found.

Given the strong seeding, it was a little hard to tell which side of the everything bagel was the top and which side was the bottom. When I figured it out, it was just like the top in terms of lacking crispness. It implied a much softer bagel than the plain one.

INSIDE/BITE

The plain bagel ended up offering a slightly softer bite than expected. There were indeed some crispy bits, so the texture opportunities with each bite were very pleasant.

Inside, the bagel was pillowy but not dense and included a traditional bagel smell. The bagel was a very quick bite and I’m not entirely sure if that was due to its smaller size, the softness of the interior, the flakiness of the crust, or a combination of all three. While tasty, the lack of any “give” made the bite feel faster than I’d ideally want.

The cream cheese was definitely high quality and that made a big difference.

As for the everything bagel, it was a very different experience. The bagel offered a very doughy bite thanks to the soft exterior and pillowy interior. As presumed, there was no crunch here. The seed flavor was very strong, which I appreciated. However, I wish the bagel offered more structure and firmness to provide some kind of texture on the bite.

The scallion cream cheese was very strong, which as we’ve learned, is not a given. Kudos on that.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Up top, I wondered if Howdy Bagel was going to prove itself to be the “Mt. Bagel of Tacoma.” In a way, I think it did, but that’s mostly because it appears to be the only decent bagel within 30 miles.

That’s not the say that Howdy Bagel isn’t good. 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.

Is It Good Enough For The Goys?

Howdy Bagel seems to have perfected the modern goyish bagel model. They built up a cult following thanks to a solid bagel that provides a canvas for some very Instagram-worthy sandwiches. The excitement over their quirky and unique offerings drives further interest, creating a demand that far exceeds supply. The reputation of the bagel itself rises in correlation to the reputation of the sandwich ingredients. And that’s how you end up with people waiting in line for three hours for a bagel.

Is It Good Enough For Northeastern Jews?

My Northeastern Jewish sensibilities were jarred by the brisket sandwich showstopper that combined a lot of Jewish things while also feeling extremely un-Jewish. But I quickly realized that’s their thing and they’re running with it. And as I said, they seem like genuinely nice people who found their niche and are killing it. I would imagine those modern concoctions are going to be what keep Howdy Bagel on the map in the years ahead.

As far as the bagel is concerned, I think it’s a must-try if you’re in Tacoma, but don’t feel you absolutely have to make a trip (or, as in my case, two) just to seek it out. I’ll definitely head back when the storefront opens to see how it compares, and my hope is that the lines will have calmed down significantly by then.

MY SEATTLE BAGEL RANKINGS SO FAR

1. Bagel Oasis

2. Little Market

3. Oxbow

4. Loxsmith

5. Old Salt

6. Rubinstein

7. Zylberschtein’s

8. Ben & Esther’s

9. Rachel’s

10. Macrina

11. Westman’s

12. Grateful Bread

13. Eltana

14. Kelly’s Cannoli

15. Blazing Bagels

16. Dingfelder’s

17. Bagelbop

OUTSIDE SEATTLE BAGEL RANKINGS

1. Howdy Bagel (Tacoma)

2. 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.