Can I find a good Olympia bagel at... San Francisco Street Bakery
a.k.a. a good reminder to always have a back-up plan.
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.
The hotly anticipated Sixth/6th Avenue Bagels officially opened this past week and business has been brisk they’ve sold out each day since. That’s exciting news for owner Kyle Shorin as he gets his brick-and-mortar shop off the ground.
It was also a bat signal in my direction that I needed to make the trip from Seattle to the state capital. Given the sold-out days, I knew I’d need an early start. So, I headed south at 7 a.m. hoping to catch them right after their 8:00 a.m. opening time. I figured I could get in and get out before the crowds showed up.
I consider myself a relatively smart adult, but I am reminded from time to time that I can still be such a sweet summer child.
Driving towards the storefront at 8:15 a.m., I was splashed in the face with the cold, hard reality that I was too late. The line was already about 60 people deep, stretched around the corner, and did not appear to be moving particularly fast.
I immediately felt the memories of Howdy Bagel lines past kick in. I’ve learned a lot about myself on this bagel journey and if there’s anything I now know for sure it’s that, while I’m excited to try these bagels, I’m just not good about waiting in lines.
So, I bailed out. Sixth Borough announced on their IG that they sold out around 11:00 a.m. so they did just fine (and I’m incredibly excited for them). I’ll wait for the lines to die down or for pre-orders to become available, but I’ll be back.
So the question became, what do I do with myself now? While they weren’t on my immediate radar, I remembered that there was another bagel purveyor in Olympia.
San Francisco Street Bakery has been around since 1989, nestled at the corner of San Francisco and Bethel in North East Olympia. While they’ve since expanded with several other locations and a stall at the farmer’s market, that spot up on the hill remains their home base.
They make all of their artisan pastries and bread from scratch, which includes bagels. That was good enough for me. I headed up the hill to make the most of my morning visit and see how they stack up.
And if you want to know how I define a good bagel, you can find that here.
WHAT I ORDERED
Plain bagel ($1.50)
Everything bagel with garlic and chive cream cheese ($5.45)
THE EXPERIENCE
San Francisco Street Bakery kinda sneaks up on you when you’re driving past it, set back behind greenery and patio space. It’s all very quaint and gives off a very laid-back sensibility. That would become literal when I asked where the restroom was and was told “You walk through the kitchen and it’s back there. It feels illegal to do but it’s totally cool.”
This place is a neighborhood cafe in every sense and it seems like there was a steady flow of locals, families, and coffee-drinking passers-by the whole time I was there.
They had some full baskets of bagels and a few different schmears to choose from. With no scallion, I went with garlic and chive cream cheese as a substitute. The everything bagel automatically got toasted, which I kinda expected, but I got the plain as-is.
UPON FIRST GLANCE
I checked SFSB’s Instagram account and noted their Friday post with the caption “It’s bagel making time at the bakery.” I took that to mean they were making bagels ahead of time for the weekend, so I wondered how fresh they would be by Sunday. To be fair, the bagels looked intriguing when I sat down outside to enjoy them, though I did note they both had rather flat bottoms.
TOP
The plain bagel was a bit oblong on the roll, with one fat side and one skinny side, and a medium-sized center. The coloring along the top ranged from dark to golden brown and almost looked pretzel-like. There were blisters in spots as well as along the sides. Depending on where I pressed down, the top was crinkly, crackly, or firm, featuring several textured grooves.
The top of the everything bagel featured a swirling design in the dough. There was an extremely strong seed hand at work here and it appeared to be a good mix of each ingredient (except salt?). The top felt very firm thanks to the solid crust formed by all of the seasoning. The bagel itself was on the darker brown color scale and featured a very snug center.
BOTTOM
The bottoms of both bagels were fairly flat and didn’t plump out the way you’d usually like. Sometimes the saving grace for these bakes is that it gives the bottom a crustiness or crunch, but I didn’t detect too much of that here. The plain was a little crinkly to the touch but otherwise soft. The everything’s bottom was firm but soft while featuring a solid smattering of seeds. No Cormneal Ring of Doom (CRoD) on either.
INSIDE/BITE
The plain bagel offered a tough-ish rip and I noted a little bit of that classic bagel smell from the interior. The exterior did provide a little bit of crinkliness to the bite and the interior offered a strong rebound afterward. I did feel like the interior of the bagel was a little dry, lending itself to my concerns about freshness. Also, the bagel itself lacked any real “bagel flavor.”
The everything bagel with garlic and chive cream cheese was toasted and the sizable portion of schmear looked a little soft, so I had a feeling It would be an oozy experience. And it was. Each bite was a bit messy. The extensive seeds did give the bagel a nice little crackle. However, the interior dryness came through on this one as well. There also wasn’t much flavor coming through from all that seasoning, which desperately needed some salt in the mix. I detected a slight garlic flavor from the cream cheese but I was left wanting a lot more from each bite.
FINAL THOUGHTS
San Francisco Street Bakery is a lovely neighborhood cafe with great vibes and a good-looking array of pastries and bread. It seems like a lot of care goes into what they do, including the bagels. They weren’t my thing, but I would absolutely return to try out some of their other offerings.
Is It Good Enough For The Goys?
I’d much rather the goyim enjoy these made-from-scratch bagels using local ingredients than some national chain or supermarket bagel. There are so many places that just do a bagel or two with a cup of plain cream cheese and call it a day. Credit due to SFSB for offering 10 bagel flavors and 5 schmear options.
Is It Good Enough For Northeastern Jews?
Look, if you’re in Olympia, your bagel options are limited. I’ll let you know if Sixth/6th Borough Bagels lives up to the hype, but in the meantime, SFSB sure beats Panera…
MY SEATTLE BAGEL RANKINGS SO FAR (6/10/24)
Hey Bagel - 1st visit
Bloom Bistro - 1st visit
Salmonberry Goods - 1st visit
Loxsmith Bagels (West Seattle) - 1st visit
Sully Eats - 1st visit
Rachel's Bagels & Burritos - 1st visit, 2nd visit, 3rd visit
Macrina Bakery - 1st visit
Eltana (Wallingford) - 1st visit
Westman’s (U District) - 1st visit
Blazing Bagels (Ravenna) - 1st visit
Einstein Bros. Bagels (U Village) - 1st visit
Dingfelder’s - 1st visit
Kelly’s Cannoli - 1st visit
Bagelbop - 1st visit
OUTSIDE SEATTLE BAGEL RANKINGS (6/16/24)
The Bagelry (Bellingham)
Howdy Bagel (Tacoma)
The Cottage Bakery (Edmonds)
Shawn’s Cafe & Bakery (Mercer Island)
Coquette Bake Shop (Bainbridge Island)
Caffe Vino Olio (Vashon Island)
Rubinstein Bagels (Redmond)
Good Bagels Cafe (Anacortes)
Mustard Seed Baking Co. (Stanwood)
San Francisco Street Bakery (Olympia)
Blazing Bagels (Redmond)
Otherside Bagel Co. (Bellingham)
Whidbey Island Bagel Factory (Mt. Vernon)
Woodinville Bagel Bakery (Woodinville)
Big Apple Bagels (Bellevue)
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