Ever-evolving, Toasted will soon start making their own bagels
"We're not even 50 percent to where we want to be..."
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 Monday-ish, we also offer weekly bonus posts. If you’re already subscribed, I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription! Thank you for reading.
When we first heard about Toasted Bagels & Coffee, it took them about 15 months to open their U District shop. In the 12 months since opening, they’ve already opened two more locations (South Lake Union and Bellevue), and a fourth is on the way (Pioneer Square).
In seemingly record time, the Mediterranean-inspired cafe from Jaafar Altameemi and Murat Akyüz has become a regional bagel player to be reckoned with, thanks to their showstopper sandwiches and a killer social media strategy.
However, an asterisk has been attached to all that success since they opened, at least in the eyes of Seattle’s bagel intelligentsia (bagelligentsia?). They’ve been using Backyard Bagel for the canvas on which they paint their masterpieces. You could do a lot worse than using the 2025 Mensch Madness winner as your supplier, but Seattle, like so many bagel-obsessed cities, appreciates an artisan.
Soon enough, they’ll get a chance to appreciate Toasted in a whole new way, as the burgeoning bagel empire will start making its own bagels.
“Making our own bagel has been a massive project, and we've been working on it for a long time,” Altameemi told me during a visit to the Bellevue location.
He said that they don’t have a timeline in place, as they’re still in the research and development phase, but they expect to phase out Backyard Bagel and start using their own product relatively soon.
The same timeline applies to the Pioneer Square location at 1st and Yesler, which Altameemi said might open in June. However, “we aren't stressing ourselves over when that gets open.”
I had a chance to sample their in-house bagels, made by an “awesome” baker with over 30 years of experience. While I’ll wait until they make the switch for an official review, I can say the samples I tried were big, blistery, and pleasantly chewy. The larger size makes sense for their sandwich menu. They were also good enough to eat on their own without any schmears, which is always the sign of a solid bagel.
Making bagels themselves is just one aspect of Toasted's ever-growing plans.
“We’re building our own production facility,” said Altameemi. “And we really want to lean into like cream cheeses more—especially more Mediterranean flavor. We're digging deeper into sandwiches and getting a lot more elaborate with them. Some of the stuff that we had planned for sandwiches are pretty cool.”
Currently, their most popular schmears include cucumber and dill, sundried tomato and basil, and Turkish labneh.
The biggest takeaway from my chat with Altameemi was that people shouldn’t presume they know what Toasted is just yet because they’re still figuring it out themselves.
“We're not even 50 percent to where we want to be,” he said. “We're still gradually making small changes to get to what we imagine Toasted to be. Unlike most businesses who launch with their best, we're working towards our best… And so we're going to continue building little iterations at a time to get towards a product that's a lot more developed.”
Altameemi noted that the three current locations are all different models. U District seats 70 people, SLU is a more streamlined storefront, and Bellevue is currently set up in a food court. They’re evaluating each location's performance and letting that inform their vision for Toasted in the years ahead. However, they do have their sights set on a flagship location that aims even bigger than what they’re doing now.
“One thing for sure we want to do in the near future is a flagship location that extends beyond just the bagel menu,” said Altameemi. “We want to do more Turkish style, a little more Turkish breakfast, a lot more sitdown, you know, bigger build-out, a little fancier.”
Given everything they’ve accomplished in less than a year, you’d be remiss to bet against Toasted as it continues to grow and evolve.
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 this link their way.
Bring the flagship to the Greenwood neighborhood!