Monday morning this week started just like any other Monday morning for Emily Winston, owner of Boichik Bagels in Berkeley. It’s one of her two days off, so she was just relaxing when the call came.
A friend and someone who has been following Boichik’s progress closely since the beginning – OK, it was this reporter – called with incredible news: In a headline that could only be considered incendiary by many, the New York Times had just stated: “ The best bagels are in California (sorry, New York). ”
Not only that, but the author of the March 8 article, New York Times restaurant critic Tejal Rao, chose Boichik as his new favorite.
Rao opened the article describing the appearance and smell of a Boichik bagel, and then wrote the following: good for California bagels, great for West Coast standards. But no, to be clear: Emily Winston’s bagels are some of the best New York style bagels I’ve ever tasted. They are simply made in Berkeley. “
“I can die as a very happy and fulfilled person now,” Winston told me about 24 hours after the article was published. “I achieved everything that I set out to achieve. There is no greater honor for a bagel store, no praise beyond the New York Times declaring my bagels to be the best. “
The article also highlighted Midnite Bagel, which is sold at the San Francisco Ferry Building and Courage Bagels and Pop’s in the Los Angeles area. Rao briefly mentioned four other bagel stores in the Los Angeles area and the Daily Driver in San Francisco.
The timing of the article was remarkable because, on March 5, Food and Wine Magazine published a list of the top 50 bagel spots in the country, and no Bay Area supplier was on the list.
Bay bagel enthusiasts probably remember the 2015 New York Times Magazine cover story, written by local journalist Elizabeth Weil, titled “Why is it so hard to get a great bagel in California?”
Now, six years later, it clearly isn’t.
(It is important to note that, a few years before that, the famous Jewish food writer Joan Nathan wrote in the Times that the Berkeley Baron Bagels (available at Saul’s Deli) were “as good as those in Brooklyn.”)
Boichik opened in Berkeley in November 2019, but 23 months earlier, I wrote about how there were queues around Winston’s house on the Alameda, where she briefly sold them. New Jersey native Winston quickly became a media darling for daring to say out loud that he was trying to take a real New York bagel – inspired by his fond memories of the old H&H – to his foster home.
This week, not surprisingly, Winston was suffering a violent attack. By Tuesday, she had already closed pre-orders for Wednesday and had given an interview to a New York radio station, with other interviews (a podcast and a local TV station) lined up. The store is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so earlier this week, Winston bought extra flour from a friend at a local bakery, and still needed more, to meet the insane demand. On Wednesday, at 7:30 am, when Boichik opened its doors, the queue for unannounced orders was already closed.
Although Winston noticed bumps in the business after being covered by the San Francisco Chronicle a few times in 2020, this was really “the next level, a much greater magnitude,” she noted. She said she was grateful that her website didn’t crash (she could see people looking at it from all over the world). His phone rang constantly and his Instagram feed also increased.
In addition, she was receiving more wholesale inquiries, with people wanting her to send bagels across the country.
“I think the world needs something more productive to fight than anything else,” noted Winston, adding that this may be the biggest bagel news since actress Cynthia Nixon, then a candidate for governor of New York, declared her order of favorite bagel to be smoked salmon, simple creamy cheese, tomato, red onion and capers in a bagel with cinnamon and raisins.
Although Winston couldn’t be more excited (and also overwhelmed) to deal with all the anticipated madness of the coming weeks, and said that she was grateful to have a highly capable team, she also noted that since Boichik Bagels is kosher, she A store will close the entire Easter week, which begins on the evening of March 27.
“I’m feeling very grateful for that now,” she said, “since we can collapse in a pile.”
A version of this story first appeared on J., the Jewish News of Northern California. Reproduced with permission.