Seattle bagel news: Little fires everywhere
Oven fires, political fires, and free bagels for firemen
Welcome to It’s A Shanda, one Northeastern Jew’s quest to find a decent bagel in Seattle (and beyond). Along with free bagel reviews every Sunday, we also offer bonus posts (like this one) each week. If you’re already subscribed, I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription! Thank you for reading.
Life got in the way of the bagel newsletter this week so I almost didn’t have anything for the non-review post. But there’s always something happening around the Seattle bagel scene, you just have to know where to look.
FYI, I’ve got some fun mid-week posts in the work, including fun interviews and answers to burning questions. But if you’ve got anything in mind you’d like to see me tackle, shout it out in the comments or send an email to itsashanda@substack.com.
On to the news!
“First and foremost, everyone is safe.” That’s an ominous start to Backyard Bagel’s Friday Instagram post.
“Last night I woke up to an alarm that the fire department was breaking into our front door,” it reads. “We had a small fire in our oven and they [were] able to contain it very quickly.”
While they get their shop (and one of their ovens) back up to speed, Backyard Bagel will be in their front yard (the sidewalk), slinging bagels and coffee as they do at the farmers markets.
”Team is in good spirits and it’s just a small bump in the road 🙃 come on by and support!”
As for a different kind of fire, Rachel’s Bagels & Burritos found themselves in a political firestorm last week when owner Paul Osher appeared before the Seattle City Council as one of several restauranteurs pushing back on Seattle’s minimum wage requirements.
As you might already know, Seattle passed the first-in-the-nation $15 minimum wage ten years ago but an exemption was carved out for businesses with under 500 employees to pay $3 less than the current city's minimum wage so long as tips make up the difference. That compromise is ending in January and all Seattle businesses will be required to pay the full minimum wage (now $19.97) before tips.
Despite the decade lead time, some local businesses are not happy about the requirement, saying the impact of the pandemic and inflation needs to be taken into account and that all of this leads to rising costs for customers. Many of them took their case to the city council last week. Owners of Elliott Bay Brewing, Veraci Pizza, Delancey, Rachel’s, Portage Bay Cafe, and other restaurants shared their concerns over how the salary requirements would hurt them.
As you might imagine, a lot of people around Seattle were not happy with this pushback and voiced their concerns with those restaurants across the internet, including the comment sections on their social media posts. Things got particularly spicy for Rachel’s on the August 1 post, with many commenters asking for explanations or saying they won’t frequent the business anymore.
While he’s mostly let the drama play out without response, Osher did respond to one comment, clarifying where he stood on the minimum wage requirements.
“I believe that I made three points in my statement: That the minimum wage should go up, that my staff currently earns more than next year's minimum wage, and that the disappearance of a tip credit will hit counter service restaurants especially hard because there's no way we can add a service charge to replace tipping,” he wrote.
Last week, councilmember Joy Hollinsworth sponsored a bill to extend the current agreement and allow small businesses to continue paying workers less than minimum wage. However, likely due to the overwhelmingly negative response, she announced she would not move forward with it.
FYI, I highly recommend giving
a follow for all your Seattle City Council news, especially as things get particularly weird over there.
The fine folks over at Toasted. have been celebrating their recent opening in several ways. One of which has been handing out 1,000 bagel sandwiches to people in the University District community. That includes feeding local firemen (perhaps the same ones who put out the fire at Backyard Bagel???) and the neighborhood food bank.
Owners Murat Akyuz and Jaafar Altameemi also made an appearance on Fox 13 Seattle to show off their bagel wares and chat with Studio 13 Live co-hosts Mireya Garcia and Carly Henderson.
Thanks for actually reading this far. If you enjoyed my 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.